7.
Herod Agrippa II., son of the last named, before whom St.
Paul delivered the discourse contained in Ac 26. 
[The genealogical table will bear out the opinion that Herod and his family brought into history a very considerable amount of vigour and ability.] HERODIANS.—The name of a political party among the Jews, which derived its name from the support it gave to the dynasty of Herod. Perhaps they hoped for the restoration of the national kingdom under one of the sons of Herod. The Herodians appear in the Gospels on two occasions (Mk 3:6, Mt 22:16 || Mk 12:13) as making common cause with the Pharisees against Jesus.
HERODIAS.—See Herod, No. 3, and John the Baptist.
HERODION—A Christian mentioned in Ro 16:11, apparently a Jew, and perhaps a freedman of the Herods.
HERON.—The Heb. word ’anāphāh designates an unclean bird (Lv 11:19, Dt 14:18), not otherwise mentioned in the Bible, but sufficiently well known to be taken as a type of a class. The occurrence of this name immediately after stork, and followed by the expression ‘after her kind,’ makes it probable that the EV rendering is correct. The heron belongs to the same group as the stork, and no fewer than six species of the genus Ardea alone are found in Palestine.
HESHBON is the modern Hesbān, finely situated close to the edge of the great plateau of Eastern Palestine. The extensive ruins, mainly of Roman times, lie on two hills connected by a saddle. The site commands views, E. and S., of rolling country; N., of hills, including e.g. that on which el-‘At (Elealeh) lies; and W., in the distance, of the hills of Judah, and nearer, through a gap in the near hills, of the Jordan valley, which lies some 4000 feet below, the river itself being barely 20 miles distant. Allotted to Reuben (Jos 13:17), Heshbon appears in the OT most frequently as being, or having been, the capital of Sihon (wh. see), king of the Amorites (Dt 2:26 and often), or, like many other towns in this neighbourhood, in the actual possession of the Moahites (Is 15:4, 16:8f., Jer 48:2, 34f.), to whom, according to Nu 21:26, it had belonged before Sihon captured it. Jer 49:3, which appears to make Heshbon an Amorite city, is probably corrupt (cf. Driver, Book of the Prophet Jeremiah). According to Josephus (Ant. XIII. xv. 4), it was in the hands of the Jews in the time of Alexander Jannæus (b.c. 104–78). The pools in Heshbon, mentioned in Ca 7:4, were perhaps pools near the spring which rises 600 feet below the city, and in the neighbourhood of which are traces of ancient conduits.
G. B. Gray.
HESHMON.—An unknown town in the extreme south of Judah (Jos 15:27).
HETH.—A ‘son’ of Canaan, Gn 10:15 (J) = 1 Ch 1:13. The wives of Esau are called in Gn 27:46 (R) ‘daughters of Heth’; and in Gn 23:3ff., 25:10, 49:32 (all P) ‘children of Heth,’ i.e. Hittites, are located at Mamre. See, further, Hittites.
HETHLON.—A place mentioned by Ezekiel (47:15, 48:1) as situated on the ideal northern boundary of Israel. Furrer identifies it with the present Heiteta, N.E. of Tripoli; and von Kasteren and others favour ’Adlun, north of the mouth of the Kasimiyyeh.
W. M. Nesbit.
HEXATEUCH.—The first five books of the OT were known in Jewish circles as ‘the five-fifths of the Law.’ Christian scholars as early as Tertullian and Origen adopted the name Pentateuch, corresponding to their Jewish title, as a convenient designation of these books. ‘The Law’ was regarded as a unique and authoritative exposition of all individual and social conduct within Israel: a wide gulf seemed to divide it from the Book of Joshua, which inaugurated the series of historical books known as ‘the Latter Prophets.’ As a matter of fact, this division is wholly artificial. The five books of the Law are primarily intended to present the reader not with a codification of the legal system, but with some account of the antiquities and origins of Israel, as regards their religious worship, their political position, and their social arrangements. From this standpoint, nothing could be more arbitrary than to treat the Book of Joshua as the beginning of an entirely new series: ‘its contents, and, still more, its literary structure, show that it is intimately connected with the Pentateuch, and describes the final stage in the history of the Origines of the Hebrew nation’ (Driver, LOT 6 103). Critics have accordingly invented the name Hexateuch to emphasize this unity; and the name has now become universally accepted as an appropriate description of the first six volumes of the OT. In this article we propose to consider (I.) the composition, (II.) the criticism, and (III.) the characteristics of the Hexateuch.
I. Composition of the Hexateuch.—1. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was for long regarded as an unquestioned fact. The basis of this belief was the Jewish tradition of their origin which the Church took over with the books themselves. But this wide-spread and long-prevailing tradition cannot be sustained after an impartial investigation of all the facts. Indeed, the Pentateuch itself never claims such an authorship.
The account of the death of Moses and Joshua must, of course, have been added by a later writer. The description of Moses’ character in Nu 12:3 cannot be the comment of the legislator himself; while the appreciation of his character which closes Deuteronomy (34:10) suggests that a long line of prophets had intervened between the writer’s own time and Moses’ death. Similarly, Gn 12:6 is a reminder to the readers that the Canaanites were the original inhabitants of Palestine—a fact which it would have been obviously needless for Moses to record, but which subsequent generations might have forgotten. Again, in Gn 36:31 a reference is made to the time ‘before there reigned any king over the children of Israel,’ which is explicable only as the comment of an author who lived under the monarchy. The words contain no hint of any predictive suggestion such as might be held to dispute the legitimacy of the same inference being drawn from the law of the kingdom ( Dt 17:14), though even then it would be difficult to deny that, if Mioses provided for the contingency of a monarchical constitution, the form in which his advice is recorded is largely coloured by reminiscences of the historical situation in the reign of Solomon.
Certain passages do, indeed, lay claim to Mosaic authorship—e.g. the defeat of the Amalekites (Ex 17:14) and the Book of the Covenant (Ex 24:4), the central part of the Deuteronomic legislation, i.e. chs. 12–26 (Dt 31:24). (In the same way Jos 24:26 refers to the preceding section, not to the whole book.) In fact, the care with which the writers or editors felt it necessary to emphasize a Mosaic origin for certain sections, is the surest indication that it never occurred to them to attribute the remaining portions of the book either to Moses or to Joshua, and that they wished their readers to exercise as much discrimination as themselves in such matters. How did the belief in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch arise? Probably it was a natural inference from the language of Deuteronomy. There is absolutely nothing to suggest his name as the probable author of the four earlier books; but when once Deuteronomy was added to the collection, the name of Moses was transferred from that book to the whole work; much as, at a later period, the name of David was prefixed to the Psalter, though there has practically never been any doubt as to the inclusion of many post-Davidic psalms in that anthology of religious poems.
2. The indirect evidence of the Hexateuch, however, is of more importance; and the multitudinous repetitions, divergences, and even contradictions thus brought to light furnish a convincing proof that the books of the Hexateuch are the result of complicated literary processes, and cannot by any possibility be ascribed to a single author. It will be well to consider these phenomena as they concern respectively the legal and the historical sections of the Hexateuch.
(a) The demonstration that in the Hexateuch we have at least three independent bodies of law, corresponding to the requirements of as many distinct historical situations, may be considered one of the most brilliant, as it is also one of the most certain, of the achievements of Biblical criticism.
(i.) The Book of the Covenant (= C), Ex 20–23.—In these laws we catch a glimpse of primitive Israel. They are directed to the simple needs of an agricultural community. In religious matters, three feasts are mentioned when the sanctuary must be visited; and sacrifice may be done to Jehovah in any place, upon rough altars of earth or unhewn stone.
(ii.) The Deuteronomic Code (= D) gives unmistakable evidence of an advanced civilization. Seven feasts are mentioned; and their original agricultural character is wholly subordinated to their religious significance; the permission as to the numerous localities where Jehovah might be met and worshipped is arbitrarily and emphatically abrogated.
(iii.) The Levitical legislation, or Priestly Code (= P), presupposes rather than anticipates a completely altered situation. The consciousness of sin, and the need of forgiveness, had taken the place of the earlier spirit of joyous festivity which came at stated times ‘to see Jehovah’ (an expression judiciously altered by orthodox scribes in later times into ‘to be seen by, or to appear before, Jehovah’). Accordingly P describes with the utmost fulness the ritual of the Day of Atonement; this’ culminating institution of the Levitical system ‘is apparently unknown to all previous legislation. P, moreover, is in open conflict with D on the subject of the priesthood. In pre-exilic days the Levites were priests, even if one family, that of Aaron, may have enjoyed a special pre-eminence; but P takes the utmost pains to distinguish ‘the priests, the sons of Aaron,’ from ‘the Levites,’ the subordinate ministers of the sanctuary—a fact which practically proves the composition of the Priestly Code to have been subsequent to the reforms indicated by Ezekiel. Further innovations may be observed in the means adopted for the provision of the priesthood. Thus, while in D the worshipper himself consumes the firstlings, though of course the priest receives his due, in P the worshipper has no part or lot therein, as they are unreservedly appropriated for the support of the officiating minister. Other differences have also been detected.
Now these divergences might conceivably be susceptible of being explained away by harmonistic ingenuity, were not the conclusions they suggest borne out by corroborative testimony drawn from two independent quarters.
Historically it can he shown that these different codes correspond to different stages of Israel’s development. It can be shown that D was unknown before Josiah, and P before the Exile. A minute and patient investigation of such contemporary evidence as we possess in the historical books has proved conclusively that many of the laws of the Pentateuch as a whole were for centuries wholly unknown to the religious leaders or social reformers of the country. It has also been shown that on two occasions far-reaching changes were taken in hand on the lines, and on the basis, of those two later codes, embodied in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
Linguistically it has become no less evident that each code has its own peculiar terminology, its own stylistic idiosyncrasies, its own characteristic mode of presentation. The continual recurrence of remarkable words, phrases, and even sentences, in each of the three codes, coupled with the fact that this distinctive phraseology and vocabulary is strictly confined to that particular code, and does not reappear in either of the others, practically excludes the possibility of their emanating from the same author.
It may therefore be held to be beyond reasonable dispute that the legal portions of the Hexateuch are incompatible either with unity of authorship or with an even approximately contemporaneous promulgation. Language shows that they are not the work of the same legislator; history is equally decisive against their being the product of a single age.
(b) Passing from the legal to the narrative portion of the Hexateuch, we are confronted with a problem even more intricate and involved.
(i.) There are frequent repetitions. Continually we see the clearest traces of the same event being twice recorded. We may instance the story of Creation, the Flood, the history of Joseph, the Plagues of Egypt, the giving of quails and the sending of manna, the history of the spies, the rebellion of Korah, the appointment of Joshua, the conquest of Canaan. The names of various personages and famous sanctuaries are explained twice and even thrice. These examples must by no means be considered exhaustive: they could be multiplied almost indefinitely. It might, of course, be argued that the author deliberately repeated himself, but—
(ii.) These repetitions are marked by a corresponding change of language, and a difference of representation in the events they describe. We shall take the latter, the material differences, first.
The second story of Creation (Gn 2:4b–25) seems to know nothing of the six days, and gives an order of the creative acts (man—vegetation—animals—woman) evidently opposed to that given in the first chapter.
In the two accounts of the Flood (6:18–22, 7:1–25), the former states that two of every sort of beast entered the ark (6:19, 7:15), while the latter states with equal explicitness that for one couple of unclean beasts, seven couples of clean animals were to be admitted (7:2, 3). One account gives the duration of the Flood as 61 days; the other as a year and 10 days.
In Joseph’s history, while one writer explains that at Reuben’s suggestion he was thrown into a pit from which he was stolen by the Midianites, the other records how Judah took the lead in selling him to the Ishmaelites (37:15–20 the exact division is uncertain).
‘The narrative of the plagues (Ex 7:14–11:10) is marked by a aeries of systematic differences, relating to four distinct points—(1) the terms of the command addressed to Moses; (2) the demand made of Pharaoh; (3) the description of the plague; (4) the formula expressive of Pharaoh’s obstinacy’ (Driver, l.c. p. 25).
In theatory of the spies (Nu 13, 14), the two accounts are so clear and complete that they can be extricated from each other without much difficulty and present us with two wholly independent narratives. In one, the spies explore only the south of Judah, and returning praise the fertility of the land, but dread the strength of the inhabitants; Caleb alone dissents from their counsel of despair, and is alone exempted from the punishment of exclusion from the Holy Land. In the other, the spies penetrate to the extreme north, and on their return expatiate on the aterility of the soil; Joshua is associated with Caleb both in the vain task of pacification and in the ensuing promise.
We may take as a final instance the rebellion of Korah (Nu 16, 17), where it seems that three narratives have been combined. In one, Dathan and Abiram, of the tribe of Reuben, head a political rebellion against the civil domination of Moses, and are swallowed up alive by the earth; in the second, Korah and two hundred and fifty princes of the congregation protest against the limitation of priestly rites to the tribe of Levi, and are consumed by fire; in the third, Korah is the spokesman of an ecclesiastical agitation fostered by the Levites against the exclusive privileges enjoyed by Aaron and the Aaronic priesthood.
These differences of representation are invariably accompanied by a change of language and of characteristic expression—so that out of inextricable confusion there are gradually seen to emerge three literary entities corresponding to the three great legal strata.
(1) Deuteronomy (= D) stands almost alone; but there are several Deuteronomic additions in the Book of Joshua, conceived in that spirit of bitter hostility to the heathen which was considered an indispensable accompaniment of meritorious zeal.
(2) The main body of the work corresponds to the Book of the Covenant, which is contained in its pages. Laborious investigations have established the fact that this is not a homogeneous document, but a composite work. Two writers have been distinguished; and from the fact that one uses ‘Jahweh,’ the other ‘Elohim’ as the ordinary title for God, they have been called respectively the Jahwist and the Elohist, contracted into J and E—while the combination of those histories which seems to have been effected at a comparatively early date is known as JE.
(3) The framework of the entire history is due to the author of the Priestly Code, and this document, which supplies the schematic basis for the arrangement of the whole work, is accordingly known as P.
In conclusion, we should mention H, which stands for the Law of Holiness ( Lv 17–26), a collection of moral and ceremonial precepts plainly anterior to the work of P in which it is embodied. There is also the redactor or editor (= R), who fused the different narratives together into one smooth and connected whole.
Even this enumeration does not exhaust the capacity of critics to distinguish yet other sources used in the composition of the Hexateuch. The excessive subtlety and arbitrary methods by which some writers have succeeded in detecting the existence, and defining the precise limits, of multitudinous authors, editors, and revisers, often resting their hypotheses on no surer foundation than the extremely precarious basis of subjective preferences, must be pronounced rather a caricature than a legitimate development of critical ingenuity.
II. Criticism of the Hexateuch.—It is the task of criticism to discover the respective dates, and to determine the mutual relations of the component parts of the Hexateuch.
1. Spasmodic attempts have been made throughout the 17th cent. towards a critical study of the Hexateuch; but to Jean Astruc, physician to Louis xiv., belongs the honour of being the first to deal with the subject in a scientific and systematic form (1753). He it was who first noted in Genesis the alternation of Divine names, and attributed this phenomenon to the two main sources from which he concluded Genesis was compiled. This discovery was developed by Eichhorn, and became known as the Document Hypothesis. Eichhorn observed that the variation of Divine names was regularly accompanied by other characteristic differences both from a linguistic and an historical standpoint. Further investigation revealed the presence of two sources, both employing the title ‘Elohim.’ This theory of a Second Elohist, from which at first many erroneous inferences were drawn, has established itself in the domain of Biblical criticism as a no less unassailable conclusion than the original discovery of Astruc himself.
2. These unexpected discoveries in the text of Genesis naturally suggested the critical analysis of the remaining books of the Hexateuch. But the absence of any such distinctive criterion as the use of the two Divine names made progress difficult. Geddes, however, in Scotland (1800) and Vater in Germany (1802) essayed the task. The latter, in particular, developed a consistent theory, known as the Fragment Hypothesis. He held that the perpetual repetitions and varying phraseology characteristic of the different sections, were susceptible of rational explanation only as an agglomeration of unconnected fragments, subsequently collected and not inharmoniously patched together by an industrious historian of Israel’s early literature and antiquities. He believed that Deuteronomy originated in the time of David; and that it formed the kernel round which the rest of the Pentateuch was gradually added.
3. The chief weakness of this second theory (itself a natural exaggeration of the first) lay in the fact that it entirely ignored those indications of a unifying principle and of a deliberate plan which are revealed by an examination of the Hexateuch as a whole. It was the great merit of de Wette to make this abundantly clear. But he also inaugurated an era of historical as opposed to, or rather as complementary to, literary criticism. He led the way in instituting a careful comparison between the contemporary narratives and the Pentateuchal legislation. As a result of this examination, he became convinced that Deuteronomy presented a picture of Israel’s life and worship unknown in Israel before the time of Josiah’s reformation. Only a short step separated this conclusion from the identification of D with the law-book discovered in the Temple in Josiah’s reign and adopted by that monarch as the basis of his reforms (2 K 22). The elimination of D considerably simplified, but did not finally solve, the main problem. A reaction against de Wette’s (at first) exclusively historical methods in favour of literary investigations resulted in establishing the connexion that subsisted between the Elohist of Genesis and the legislation of the middle books. This was considered the Grundschrift or primary document, which the Jahwistic writer supplemented and revised. Hence this theory is known as the Supplement Hypothesis, which held the field until Hupfeld (1853) pointed out that it ascribed to the Jahwist mutually incompatible narratives, and a supplementary position quite foreign to his real character.
4. We thus come to the Later Document Theory. Hupfeld’s labours bore fruit in three permanent results. (1) There are two distinct Elohistic documents underlying Genesis—those chapters which have undergone a Jahwistic redaction (e.g. 20–22) being due to an entirely different author from the writer of Gn 1. (2)
The Jahwist must be regarded as an independent source no less than the Elohist. (3)
The repetitions and divergences of the Jahwist entirely disprove the Supplement Theory, and show that he is probably not even acquainted with the Elohist, but furnishes a self-contained, complete, and independent account. Hupfeld found a valuable ally in Nöldeke, who, while introducing some minor modifications, showed how the Elohistic framework could be traced throughout the entire Hexateuch, and how it might easily be recognized by observing the recurrence of its linguistic peculiarities and the fixity of its religious ideas.
5. The Graf-Wellhausen Theory.—It will be observed that although criticism had begun to disentangle the component parts of the Hexateuch, no effort was made to inaugurate an inquiry into the mutual relations of the different documents. Still less does it seem to have occurred to any one to regard these three literary stratifications as embodiments, as it were, of various historical processes through which the nation passed at widely different periods. A provisional solution had been reached as to the use and extent of the different sources. Graf (1866) instituted a comparison between these sources themselves; and, assuming the identity of D with Josiah’s law-book as a fixed point from which to commence investigations, concluded, after an exhaustive inquiry, that while D presupposes the Jahwistic laws in Ex 20–23, 34, the bulk of the Levitical legislation (i.e. P or the Elohistic Grundschrift) must have been unknown to the writer. Testing this result by external evidence, he concluded that P could not have been produced before the Exile, and that in all probability it was compiled by Ezra.
Some details of Graf’s theory rendered it especially vulnerable; but it was adopted by Wellbausen, whose Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1883) may be regarded as the culminating point of Biblical criticism. In his opinion—and in general we may consider his views on the main question indisputable—a comparison of the laws with the evidence supplied by the prophetical and historical books shows that ‘the three great strata of laws embodied in the so-called books of
Moses are not all of one age, but correspond to three stages in the development of Israel’s institutions.’ Moreover, he justly pointed out that there were no valid grounds to distinguish between the legal and the historical sections: JE, which is mainly narrative, yet embodies the Sinaitic legislation; Deuteronomy gives a full historical presentation; the Priestly Code supplies the framework of the whole. The chronological order of these codes may now be considered beyond dispute— Jahwistic, Deuteronomy, Priestly Code. ‘When the codes are set in their right places the main source of confusion in the study of the Old Testament is removed, the central problem of criticism is solved, and the controversy between modern criticism and conservative tradition is really decided’ (W. R. Smith, OTJC2 388).
III. Characteristics of the Hexateuch.—It now remains to note the characteristics of the different documents, distinguishing not merely their literary differences but also their religious standpoint. Perhaps it will he simplest to begin with Deuteronomy, which, being more self-contained, also exhibits more unmistakably the clearest evidence of independent thought and language, and whose approximate age, moreover, can be determined with a precision little short of absolute certainty.
(1) D.—From 2 K 22, 23 we learn that a book of the Law discovered in the Temple created an immense sensation, and provided the basis for the national reformation undertaken by king Josiah in the year b.c. 621 at the instance of the prophetic party. The old theory was that this ‘Book of the Covenant’ was really the Pentateuch, composed ages before, long fallen into complete oblivion, at length accidentally re-discovered, and finally adopted as the rule of national righteousness. But this view is wholly untenable.
(i.) It is incredible that the whole Pentateuch should have disappeared so utterly, or been so wholly forgotten. The book discovered in the Temple made so great an impression because to every one concerned it brought an entirely new message.
(ii.) History has shown clearly that a very large part of the Pentateuch—the Levitical legislation—did not come into being, or at any rate into force, till very many years later: and that, therefore, these laws could not by any possibility have been included in this newly discovered work.
(iii.) We may add that the account mentions that ‘all the words of the book’ were read out loud twice on one day. The manifest impossibility of such a feat with reference to the entire Pentateuch has driven conservative critics to suggest a theory of appropriate selections; but this arbitrary supposition is little better than a dishonest evasion.
(iv.) Finally, the ‘Book of the Covenant’ is a title never given to the entire Pentateuch, but only to certain of its constituent elements.
If negative evidence proves that the law-book thus discovered was only a part of the Pentateuch, positive reasons leave practically no room for doubt that this part of the Law was identical with Deuteronomy.
(i.) The name ‘Book of the Covenant’ can refer only to Ex 24:7 or to
Deuteronomy. The other title ‘Book of the Law’ is repeatedly used in D itself as its own appropriate and familiar designation.
(ii.) But we can best judge of the contents and character of Josiah’s law-book by observing its effect. The discovery of the book led to two important consequences, (a) An entire reform of the whole system of Israelite religion, the abolition of local sanctuaries, and the centralization of all sacrificial worship in the Temple at Jerusalem, (b) The celebration of a great Passover strictly in accordance with the ceremonies prescribed in the new hook, by the entire people.
Stylistically and linguistically, the distinguishing characteristics of D are very marked. ‘In vocabulary, indeed, it presents comparatively few exceptional words; but particular words and phrases, consisting sometimes of entire clauses, recur with extraordinary frequency, giving a distinctive colouring to every part of the work’ (Driver, op. cit. 99). So much so, indeed, that it is possible to recognize immediately a passage of Deuteronomic authorship, or written under
Deuteronomic influence. (For a convenient conspectus of such words and phrases the reader is referred to the careful synopsis, ib. 99–102.) The style is free and flowing; long and stately periods abound; but there is no affectation or monotony in the persuasive eloquence with which the writer urges the claims of Jahweh upon
Israel.
Theologically, the distinctive feature of D is the law of the one sanctuary, which is perpetually enforced with solemn warnings; but it is, after all, only an external method of realizing the inmost thought of the book—the greatness of God’s love in the election and redemption of Israel, and the response for which He looks in the entire devotion of the human heart. This truly prophetical theme is handled with such warmth and tenderness as to justify its happily chosen designation as ‘the Gospel of the OT.’
(2) P.—If D represents the prophetic formulation of Mosaic legislation, viewed in the light of the subsequent history and religious experiences of four centuries, so does P show us how, a hundred years later, when the theocracy found practical embodiment in the realization of priestly ideals, the early history of Israel was interpreted in accordance with the requirements of a later age. Just as the law of the one sanctuary in Deut. is the practical application of Isaiah’s doctrine concerning the sanctity and inviolability of Zion, so the separation of the Levites from the priests, which is perpetually emphasized throughout Leviticus, is really the outcome of Ezekiel’s suggestion as to the best solution of the difficulty which arose when, in consequence of Josiah’s reformation, the high places were suppressed, and the priests who served them were consequently dispossessed of all means of subsistence. It was Ezekiel’s idea that the Levites, though previously enjoying full priestly rights, should forfeit their privileges in consequence of their participation in the idolatrous practices which had characterized the worship at the high places, and should be degraded to the performance of menial duties connected with the cultus established at Jerusalem. A comparison of the theology and of the historical circumstances presupposed by P practically demonstrates its origin to be later than Ezekiel. Of course this refers only to its literary production, not to all its contents, some of which (e.g. the ‘Law of Holiness’) are plainly derived from a much more ancient source. It is, however, a mistake to view P as simply a code dealing with ritual regulations, or as the religious law-book of the restored community. The author, writing from a priestly standpoint, aims at giving a complete and systematic account of the ‘origins,’ both political and religious, of his nation. Accordingly chronological lists, enumeration of names, and other similar statistics constitute a prominent feature of his narrative; and by those signs throughout the entire Hexateuch it becomes easy to distinguish the writer. As a rule, he is content to give a mere outline of the history, unless it becomes necessary to explain the origin of some ceremonial institution. In representing God’s converse with men, he shrinks from using the forcible, familiar language which earlier writers employed without scruple. Anthropomorphisms are rare, angels and dreams are not mentioned. On the other hand, P nowhere deals with those deeper spiritual problems—the origin of evil, the purpose of election, the idea of a universal mission, the Messianic hope—which were so marked a feature in Israel’s religious consciousness, and which both claimed and received sympathetic, if not systematic, treatment from the other authors of the Hexateuch.
The style of P is scarcely less distinctive than that of D. It is ‘stereotyped, measured, and prosaic.’ There is a mark d absence of the poetical element; and a no less marked repetition of stated formulæ. Even the historical sections are marked by a quasi-legal phraseology, while the methodical completeness with which details are described, and directions given, tends at times to degenerate into monotonous prolixity.
There can be no doubt that P with its systematic chronology furnishes the historical and literary framework of the Hexateuch; but the obvious deduction that it was therefore the earliest document, to which the others were in process of time attached, has been proved erroneous by a comparison and combination of historical, literary, and theological considerations. We must, however, remember that ‘although there are reasons’—and reasons which cannot seriously be controverted—‘for supposing that the Priests’ Code assumed finally the shape in which we have it, in the age subsequent to Ezekiel, it rests ultimately upon an ancient traditional basis.… The laws of P, even when they included later elements, were still referred to Moses—no doubt because in its basis and origin Hebrew legislation was actually derived from him, and was only modified gradually’ (Driver, op. cit. 154).
(3) JE.—We now come to the remaining portions of the Hexateuch—which for convenience’ sake are known as the work of JE. One is naturally suspicious of any needless multiplication of writers or documents; but the critical analysis of JE forces us to the conclusion that it is really a composite work, embodying two distinct traditions combined with no little skill by a subsequent editor. From a literary no less than from a linguistic standpoint, diversities and even divergences appear which convert doubt into certainty. Yet the compilation has a character of its own, and principles of its own, which may be termed prophetical in distinction from those which find expression in the Priestly Code. Both the documents from which JE was compiled traverse pretty much the same ground, and were probably composed at about the same time. This would largely account for their frequent similarities; and of course it would have been the editor’s aim to remove any glaring discrepancies. We thus find the whole narrative characterized by a kind of superficial homogeneity, and also by the same general religious beliefs and hopes. But notwithstanding these considerations, the original independence of the two documents is so manifest in the greater part of the narrative that it has become an almost unanimously accepted conclusion of Hexateuchal criticism. The two sources are distinguished in three ways. They often tell a different tale; they employ different language; they proclaim a different message.
It is in the history of the patriarchs that we first become aware of different accounts of the same transaction (neither of which can be referred to P) standing side by side, although the independence is so marked that it passes into irreconcilable divergences. Similar phenomena abound throughout the Hexateuch. When once the possibility of two documents was suspected, stylistic distinctions, themselves hitherto unsuspected, began to confirm this conclusion. The use of ‘Jahweh’ by the one writer, of ‘Elohim’ by the other, furnished a simple criterion, which was not, however, uniformly available, especially after Genesis. But other differences, not sufficient in themselves to prove diversity of authorship, were yet collected in sufficient numbers to lend strong support to the hypothesis which had been arrived at on quite different grounds. But the distinctions are by no means merely literary artifices. While E arose in Northern Israel, as is evidenced by the interest the author manifests in the Northern sanctuaries, J appears to have originated in the kingdom of Judah (cf. the prominent part that distinctively Southern stories occupy in the course of the patriarchal history, and the preeminence of Judah, rather than Reuben, among the sons of Jacob). J is a patriot, and takes a loving pride in Israel’s early history; but he is not content with the mere facts, he seeks a philosophy of history. He embodies in his narrative his reflexions on the origin of sin, and on the character of Israel’s God. He not merely recounts the election of the patriarchs, but realizes that the election is according to purpose, and that God’s purpose embraces humanity. The whole patriarchal story is ‘instinct with the consciousness of a great future’ (Driver), which takes the form of a mission in, if not to, the world. The style of J is free and flowing, vivid and picturesque. His delineation of character, his introduction of dialogue, his powerful description of scenes from common life, if somewhat idealistic, are yet so natural and graceful as to give the impression of unsurpassable charm. Speaking of Jahweh, he is untrammelled by theological scruples, and uses anthropomorphic and even anthropopathic expressions with frequency and without reserve.
E—the Elohist or Ephraimite source—is more restrained in his language, more didactic in his history, more theological in his religious beliefs. The prophetical element is strongly brought out. Abraham is expressly called a prophet, Miriam a prophetess. The function of Moses is prophetic in all but in name; the seventy elders receive prophetic inspiration; Joseph receives the spirit of Elohim; and Balaam’s prophetic office is recognized. E, moreover, both in his historical and in his legal sections, emphasizes the importance of a high ethical standard. God speaks through angels and human agents, reveals Himself in dreams. By this means the bold but forceful language of J is toned down in conformity with the demands or fears of a more timorous orthodoxy. It is a curious fact that E ignores Israel’s mission to the world; indeed, the author takes little or no interest in the affairs of other nations, or in the universal significance of Israel’s history or Israel’s hope. It is the theocracy in Israel that engages all his attention, and his work may be considered as drawing from the early history of the national ancestors a much needed lesson for the age in which he wrote—a lesson of the importance of high ethical standards, and of the reverence and worship due to the exalted Being who was Israel’s God.
Which of those two histories was the first to be committed to writing is a subject upon which critics are not agreed; but there is a general consensus of opinion that both authors wrote after the establishment of the monarchy. The usual date fixed is the century before b.c. 750. It must not, however, for a moment be imagined that the date of an event being recorded in a regular historical work is contemporaneous with its actual occurrence, and there is no valid reason for throwing discredit upon the narratives or representations of JE because it was not till many years later that oral tradition concerning them became crystallized in a written record.
It may legitimately be asked to what extent the criticism of the Hexateuch affects our belief in the inspiration of the sacred books. Our answer is that we have gained immeasurably. (1) Assuming the whole Hexateuch to have been composed by Moses, the divergences and alterations throughout the entire legislation are so numerous and manifold as to lay the work of the great lawgiver open to the charge of endless inconsistency and ‘arbitrary experimentalizing.’ (2) The history of the chosen nation was, on the traditional view, perfectly unintelligible. For many centuries the majority of the laws given ex hypothesi at Sinai were not only impracticable but even unknown. Now we see how at each stage of the nation’s religious development God raised up men inspired by His Spirit to interpret the past in the light of present requirements, and the present by the aid of past experience; men who were commissioned to develop past legislation into a living message, to show how the Mosaic legislation contained within itself germs productive of an inextinguishable life, ever ready to renew itself in such laws or forms as were required to secure the preservation of the nation and the religious ideals for which it stood. It is true that the Hexateuch has been analyzed into many component parts; yet it was not by one man’s mouth, but ‘in many fragments and in many manners, that God spoke of old to the fathers’ (He 1:1); and it is the realization of this progressive revelation in olden days which, more than anything else. enables Christians to grasp the majesty of that supreme and final dispensation wherein the same God has spoken once for all to us in His Son.
Ernest A. Enghill.
HEZEKIAH.—1. One of the most prominent kings of Judah. He came to the throne after his father Ahaz, about b.c. 714. The assertions that Samaria was destroyed in his sixth year and that Sennacherib’s invasion came in his fourteenth year are inconsistent (2 K 18:10, 13). The latter has probability on its side, and as we know that Sennacherib invaded Palestine in 701 the calculation is easily made.
Politically Hezekiah had a difficult task. His father had submitted to Assyria, but the vassalage was felt to be severe. The petty kingdoms of Palestine were restive under the yoke, and they were encouraged by the Egyptians to make an effort for independence. There was always an Egyptian party at the court of Jerusalem, though at this time Egypt was suffering from internal dissensions. In the East the kingdom of Babylon under Merodach-baladan was also making trouble for the Assyrians. Hezekiah seems to have remained faithful to the suzerain for some years after his accession, but when, about the time of Sennacherib’s accession (705), a coalition was formed against the oppressor he joined it. We may venture to suppose that about this time he received the embassy from Merodach-baladan (2 K 20:12ff., Is 39:1ff.), which was intended to secure the co-operation of the Western States with Babylon in the effort then being made. Isaiah, as we know from his own discourses, was opposed to the Egyptian alliance, and apparently to the whole movement. The Philistines were for revolt; only Padi, king of Ekron, held out for his master the king of Assyria. For this reason Hezekiah invaded his territory and took him prisoner. If, as the Biblical account seems to intimate (2 K 18:8), he incorporated the conquered land in his own kingdom, the gain was not for a long time. In 701 Sennacherib appeared on the scene, and there was no possibility of serious resistance. The inscriptions tell us that the invaders captured forty-six walled towns, and carried 200,000 Judahites into slavery. The Egyptian ( some suppose it to be an Arabian) army made a show of coming to the help of its allies, but was met on the border and defeated. Hezekiah was compelled to release the captive Padi, who returned to his throne in triumph. Sennacherib was detained at Lachish by the stubborn resistance of that fortress, and could send only a detachment of his troops to Jerusalem. With it went an embassy, the account of which may be read in 2 K 18, 19 and Is 36, 37. The laconic sentence: ‘Hezekiah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying: I have offended; that which thou puttest on me will I bear’ (2 K 18:14) shows that abject submission was made. The price of peace was a heavy one—three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To pay it, all the gold and silver that could be found was gathered together, even the Temple doors (v. 16) being stripped of their precious metal.
In our accounts we read of a great destruction which came upon the Assyrian army (2 K 19:35, Is 37:36). Whether Sennacherib was not satisfied with the submission of Hezekiah, or whether a second campaign was made which the historian has confused with this one, is not yet certainly known. There was a second expedition of Sennacherib’s to the west some years later than the one we have been considering. At that time, it may be, the pestilence broke out and made the army too weak for further operations. It is clear that the people of Jerusalem felt that they had had a remarkable deliverance. Hezekiah’s sickness is dated by the Biblical writer in the time of this invasion, which can hardly be correct if the king lived fifteen years after that experience.
The account of Hezekiah’s religious reforms is more sweeping than seems probable for that date. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that he destroyed the brazen serpent, which had been an object of worship in the Temple (2 K 18:4).
The cleansing of the country sanctuaries from idolatry, under the influence of Isaiah, may have been accomplished at the same time. The expansions of the Chronicler (2 Ch 29ff.) must be received with reserve.
2. An ancestor of the prophet Zephaniah (Zeph 1:1), possibly to be identified with the king of the same name. 3. Head of a family of exiles who returned, Ezr 2:16 = Neh 7:21 (cf. 10:17).
H. P. Smith.
HEZION.—Father of Tabrimmon, and grandfather of Benhadad, the Syrian king (1 K 15:18). It has been plausibly suggested that Hezion is identical with Rezon of 1 K 11:23, the founder of the kingdom of Damascus, and an adversary to Solomon.
HEZIR.—1. The 17th of the priestly courses (1 Ch 24:15). 2. A lay family, which signed the covenant (Neh 10:22).
HEZRO or HEZRAI.—One of David’s thirty heroes (2 S 23:35, 1 Ch 11:37).
HEZRON.—1. The eponymous head of a Reubenite family (Gn 46:9, Ex 6:14 , Nu 26:6 = 1 Ch 5:3). 2. The eponymous head of a Judahite family (Gn 46:12, Nu 26:21 = Ru 4:18, 19, 1 Ch 2:5, 9, 18, 21, 24, 25, 4:1). This Hezron appears also in the NT in the genealogy of our Lord (Mt 1:3, Lk 3:33). The gentilic name Hezronites occurs in Nu 26:6 referring to the descendants of No. 1, and in v. 21 referring to those of No. 2 above. 3. A town in the south of Judah (Jos 15:3) = Hazar-addar of Nu 34:4.
HIDDAI.—One of David’s thirty heroes (2 S 23:30). He is called Hurai in the parallel list 1 Ch 11:32.
HIDDEKEL.—The river Tigris, mentioned as the third river of Paradise ( Gn
2:14), and as ‘the great river’ by the side of which Daniel had his vision (Dn 10:4).
The Heb. Hiddeqel was taken from the Bab. name for the Tigris, Idiglat or Diglat, which was in turn derived from its Sumerian name, Idigna.
L. W. King.
HIEL.—The name of a certain Bethelite who in the days of Ahab fortified Jericho, and possibly sacrificed his two sons to appease the gods of the disturbed earth (1 K 16:34). Some obscure event is here applied as a comment on the curse on Jericho pronounced by Joshua.
W. F. Cobb.
HIERAPOLIS (‘holy city’) is mentioned in the Bible only in Col 4:13, in association with the neighbouring towns Laodicea and Colossæ. All three were situated in the valley of the Lycus, a tributary of the Mæander, in Phrygia, Hierapolis on the north side being about 6 miles from the former and 12 miles from the latter. (The best map of this district is at p. 472 of Ramsay’s Church in the Roman Empire.) It probably belonged originally to the tribe Hydrelitæ, and derived its title from the medicinal hot springs there, which revealed plainly to the ancient mind the presence of a divinity. The water is strongly impregnated with alum, and the calcareous deposit which it forms explains the modern name Pambuk-Kalessi (Cotton Castle). Another sacred attribute of the city was a hole, about the circumference of a man’s body, from which noxious vapours issued: Strabo (in the time of Augustus) had seen sparrows stifled by them. The city owed all its importance in NT times to its religious character. It had not been visited by St.
Paul, but derived its Christianity from his influence (cf. Ac 19:10 and Col.). Legend declares that the Apostles Philip and John preached there, and this appears trustworthy. The fight between native superstition and the enlightenment brought by Christianity must have been very bitter. The city remained important throughout the Empire, and was the birthplace of Epictetus, the Stoic.
A. Souter.
HIEREEL (1 Es 9:21) = Jehiel of Ezr 10:21.
HIEREMOTH.—1. 1 Es 9:27 = Ezr 10:26 Jeremoth. 2 1 Es 9:30 = Ezr 10:29 Jeremoth (RVm ‘and Ramoth’).
HIERMAS (1 Es 9:26) = Ezr 10:25 Ramiah.
HIERONYMUS.—A Syrian officer in command of a district of Pal. under Antiochus v. Eupator, who harassed the Jews after the withdrawal of Lysias in b.c. 165 (2 Mac 12:2).
HIGGAION.—See Psalms ( Titles ).
HIGH PLACE, SANCTUARY.—The term ‘sanctuary’ is used by modern students of Semitic religion in two senses, a wider and a narrower. On the one hand, it may denote, as the etymology suggests, any ‘holy place,’ the sacredness of which is derived from its association with the presence of a deity. In the narrower sense ‘sanctuary’ is used of every recognized place of worship, provided with an altar and other apparatus of the cult, the special designation of which in OT is bāmāh, EV ‘high place.’ In this latter sense ‘sanctuary’ and ‘high place’ are used synonymously in the older prophetic literature, as in Am 7:9 ‘the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste.’
1. In the wider sense of ‘sanctuary,’ as above defined, any arbitrarily chosen spot may become a holy place, if tradition associates it with a theophany, or visible manifestation of a Divine being. Such, indeed, was the origin of the most famous of the world’s sanctuaries (see 2 S 24:16ff.). On the other hand, certain objects of nature—springs and rivers, trees, rocks and, in particular, mountains—have been regarded with special reverence by many primitive peoples as ‘the homes or haunts of the gods.’ Thus the belief in the peculiar sacredness of springs and wells of ‘living water’ is one that has survived to our own day, even among advanced races. It was to this belief that the ancient sanctuary of Beersheba (which see) owed its origin. A similar belief in sacred trees as the abode of superhuman spirits or numina has been scarcely less tenacious. The holy places which figure so conspicuously in the stories of the patriarchs are in many cases tree-sanctuaries of immemorial antiquity, such as ‘the terebinth of Moreh,’ at Shechem, under which Abram is said to have built his first altar in Canaan (Gn 12:6f.; cf. 13:18).
More sympathetic to the modern mind is the choice of mountains and hills as holy places. On mountain-tops, men, from remote ages, have felt themselves nearer to the Divine beings with whom they sought to hold converse (cf. Ps 121:1). From OT the names of Horeb (or Sinai), the ‘mountain of God’ (Ex 3:1), of Ebal and Gerizim, of Carmel and Tabor (Hos 5:1), at once suggest themselves as sanctuaries where the Hebrews worshipped their God.
2. From these natural sanctuaries, which are by no means peculiar to the Hebrews or even to the Semitic family, we may now pass to a fuller discussion of the local sanctuaries or ‘high places,’ which were the recognized places of worship in Israel until near the close of the seventh century b.c. Whatever may be the precise etymological significance of the term bāmāh (plur. bāmōth), there can be no doubt that ‘high place’ is a sufficiently accurate rendering. Repeatedly in OT the worshippers are said to ‘go up’ to, and to ‘come down’ from, the high places. The normal situation of a high place relative to the city whose sanctuary it was is very clearly brought out in the account of the meeting of Samuel and Saul at Ramah (1 S 9:13–25). It is important, however, to note that a local sanctuary, even when it bore the name bāmāh, might be, and presumably of ten was, within the city, and was not necessarily situated on a height. Thus Jeremiah speaks of ‘high places’ (bāmōth) in the valley of Topheth at Jerusalem (7:31, 19:5 RV; cf. Ezk 6:3), and the high place, as we must call it, of the city of Gezer, presently to be described, lay in the depression between the two hills on which the city was built.
With few exceptions the high places of OT are much older, as places of worship, than the Hebrew conquest. Of this the Hebrews in later times were well aware, as is shown by the endeavour on the part of the popular tradition to claim their own patriarchs as the founders of the more famous sanctuaries. Prominent among these was the ‘king’s sanctuary’ (Am 7:13 RV) at Bethel, with its companion sanctuary at Dan; scarcely less important were those of Gilgal and Beersheba, and ‘the great high place’ at Gibeon (1 K 3:4). In the period of the Judges the chief sanctuary in Ephraim was that consecrated by the presence of the ark at Shiloh (Jg 21:19, 1 S 1:3 etc.), which was succeeded by the sanctuary at Nob (1 S 21:1). But while these and others attracted worshippers from near and far at the time of the great festivals, it may safely be assumed that every village throughout the land had, like Ramah, its local bāmāh.
3. In taking over from the Canaanites the high places at which they worshipped Baal and Astarte, the Hebrews made little or no change in their appearance and appointments. Our knowledge of the latter gleaned from OT has of late years been considerably extended by excavations and discoveries in Palestine. By these, indeed, the history of some of the ‘holy places’ of Canaan has been carried back to the later Stone Age. Thus the excavations at Gezer, Taanach, and elsewhere have laid hare a series of rock surfaces fitted with cup-marks, which surely can have been intended only for the reception of sacrificial blood. The sanctuary of the Gezer cave-dwellers measures 90 by 80 feet, and ‘the whole surface is covered with cup-marks and hollows ranging from a few inches to 5 or 6 feet in diameter.’ From one part of this primitive altar—a similar arrangement was found at Taanach—a shoot or channel had been constructed in the rock for the purpose of conveying part of the blood to a cave beneath the rock, in which was found a large quantity of the bones of pigs (PEFSt, 1903, 317 ff.; 1904, 112f.; Vincent, Canaan d’après l’exploration récente, 1907, 92 ff.). This cave was evidently regarded as the abode of chthonic or earth deities.
The excavations at Gezer have also furnished us with by far the most complete example of a high place of the Semitic invaders who took possession of the country about the middle of the third millennium b.c., and whose descendants, variously named Canaanites and Amorites, were in turn partly displaced by, partly incorporated with, the Hebrews. The high place of Gezer consists of a level platform about 33 yards in length, lying north and south across the middle of the tell. Its most characteristic feature is a row of standing stones, the pillars or mazzēbāhs of OT, of which eight are still in situ. They range in height from 5 ft. 5 in. to 10 ft. 6 in., and are all ‘unhewn blocks, simply set on end, supported at the base by smaller stones.’ The second and smallest of the series is regarded by Mr. Macalister as the oldest and most sacred, inasmuch as its top has become smooth and polished by repeated anointings with blood or oil, perhaps even by the kisses of the worshippers (cf. 1 K 19:18, Hos 13:2).
It is impossible within present limits to describe fully this important discovery, or to discuss the many problems which it raises (see, for details, PEFSt, 1903, 23 ff.; Macalister, Bible Sidelights from the Mound of Gezer, 54 ff.; Vincent, op. cit. 109 ff., all with plans and illustrations). It must, however, be added that ‘all round the feet of the columns and over the whole area of the high place the earth was discovered to be a regular cemetery, in which the skeletons of young infants, never more than a week old, were deposited in jars’—evidence of the sacrifice of the firstborn (Macalister, op. cit. 73 f.). Similar ancient high places, but on a smaller scale, have been found at Tell es-Safi (perhaps the ancient Gath), and in the north of Palestine, by the Austrian and German explorers, of whose discoveries an excellent summary is given by Father Vincent in his recently published work above cited.
Several examples of another type of high place have been discovered on a rocky summit overlooking Petra; the most complete is that described in Hastings’ DB iv. 396. Still another type of Semitic sanctuary with temple, presenting many features of interest, is minutely described and illustrated by Flinders Petrie in his Researches in Sinai, 1906, chs. vi. vii. x.
4. Combining the materials furnished by these recent discoveries with the OT data, we find that the first essential of a Hebrew high place was the altar. This might consist merely of a heap of earth or unhewn stones, as commanded by Ex 20:25; or, as shown by surviving examples (see Altar, § 2), it might be hewn out of the solid rock and approached by steps. Against this more elaborate type the legislation of Ex 20:25f. was intended as a protest. Equally indispensable to the proper equipment of a high place (cf. Dt 12:3, Hos 10:1 RV etc.) were the stone pillars or mazzēbāhs, the symbols of the deity (see Pillar), and the wooden treestumps or poles, known as ashērāhs (which see). To these must be added a laver or other apparatus for the ceremonial ablutions of the worshippers. If the sanctuary possessed an image of the deity, such as the golden bulls at Dan and Bethel, or other sacred object—an ark, an ephod, or the like—a building of some sort was required to shelter and protect it. Such was Micah’s ‘house of gods’ (Jg 17:5), and the ‘houses of high places’ of 1 K 12:31 RV. The ark was housed at Shiloh in a temple (1 S 1:9, 3:3), and a similar building is presupposed at Nob (21:5, 9). Every sanctuary of importance presumably had a dining-hall (9:22 RV ‘guest-chamber’), where the worshippers joined in the sacrificial feast (cf. 1:4 ff. ).
5. At these local sanctuaries, and at these alone, the early Hebrews worshipped J″ their God. The new sanctuary established by David at the threshing-floor of Araunah, where afterwards the Temple of Solomon was erected, was at first but another added to the list of Hebrew high places. At these, from Dan to Beersheba, sacrifices were offered by individuals, by the family (1 S 1:3), and by the clan (20:6); there men ate and drank ‘before the Lord’ at the joyful sacrificial meal. Thither were brought the tithes and other thankofferings for the good gifts of God; thither men resorted to consult the priestly oracle, to inquire of the ‘Lord’ in cases of difficulty; and there justice was administered in the name of J″. At the local sanctuary, when a campaign was impending, the soldiers were consecrated for ‘the wars of J″ (see War). There, too, the manslayer and certain others enjoyed the right of asylum. But there was a darker side to the picture. The feasts were not seldom accompanied by excess (Am 2:8, Is 28:7; cf. 1 S 1:13); prostitution even was practised with religious sanction (Dt 23:13, 1 K 14:24).
6. ‘The history of the high places is the history of the old religion of Israel’ (Moore). As the Hebrews gradually became masters of Canaan, the high places at which the local Baals and Astartes had been worshipped became, as we have seen, the legitimate sanctuaries of J″, in harmony with the universal experience of history as to the permanence of sacred sites through all the changes of race and religion. At these the most zealous champions of the religion of J″ were content to worship. It was inevitable, however, that in the circumstances heathen elements should mingle with the purer ritual of Jahweh worship. It is this contamination and corruption of the cultus at the local sanctuaries that the eighth-century prophets attack with such vehemence, not the high places themselves. In Hosea’s day the higher aspects of the religion of J″ were so completely lost sight of by the mass of the people, that this prophet could describe the religion of his contemporaries as unadulterated heathenism, and their worship as idolatry.
While this was the state of matters in the Northern Kingdom, the unique position which the sanctuary at Jerusalem had acquired in the south, and the comparative purity of the cultus as there practised, gradually led, under the Divine guidance, to the great thought that, as J″ Himself was one, the place of His worship should also be one, and this place Jerusalem. The Book of Deuteronomy is the deposit of this epoch-making teaching (see esp. 12:4ff.). Whatever may have been the extent of Hezekiah’s efforts in this direction, it was not until the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah (622–621 b.c.) that effective measures were taken, under the immediate impulse of Deuteronomy, for the destruction of the high places and the suppression of the worship which for so many centuries had been offered at the local shrines (2 K 23:5ff.). But the break with the ideas and customs of the past was too violent. With the early death of Josiah the local cults revived, and it needed the discipline of the Exile to secure the victory of the Deuteronomic demand for the centralization of the cultus.
7. To men inspired by the ideals of Dt. we owe the compilation of the Books of Kings. For them, accordingly, the worship at the local sanctuaries became illegal from the date of the erection of Solomon’s Temple—‘only the people sacrificed in the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days’ (1 K 3:2 RV). From this standpoint the editors of Kings pass judgment on the successive sovereigns, by whom ‘the high places were not taken away’ (1 K 15:14 RV and oft.). This adverse judgment is now seen to be unhistorical and undeserved.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HIGH PRIEST.—See Priests and Levites.
HILEN (1 Ch 6:58).—See Holon, No. 1.
HILKIAH (‘Jah [is] my portion,’ or ‘portion of Jah’).—A favourite priestly name. 1. Father of Eliakim, Hezekiah’s chief of the household (2 K 18:18 etc.=Is 36:3 etc., Is 22:20–25). 2. A priest of Anathoth, probably of the line of Eli (see 1 K 2:26, 27), father of Jeremiah (Jer 1:1); he is not to be identified with the next. 3. The high priest in b.c. 621, who ‘found’ during the repairs of the Temple and brought to Josiah’s notice, through Shaphan, ‘the book of the law’ (2 K 22:3–11=2 Ch 34:8–19), which occasioned the reformation of religion thereafter effected (2 K 23:1–24=2 Ch 34:29–35:19). Hilkiah headed the deputation sent to consult Huldah on this discovery (2 K 22:12–20=2 Ch 34:20–28); and presided over the subsequent purification of the Temple (2 K 23:4ff.). He was a chief actor in the whole movement. There is no reason to doubt that his find was the genuine discovery of a lost law-book; this book was unmistakably the code of
Deuteronomy (wh. see). 4. Father of the Gemariah of Jer 29:3. 5, 6. Levites of the clan of Merari (1 Ch 6:45, 26:11). 7. A ‘chief of the priests’ returning from the Exile in b.c. 536 (Neh 12:7, 21). 8. A companion of Ezra at the public reading of the Law (Neh 8:4); he appears as Ezekias in 1 Es 9:43.
G. G. Findlay.
HILL, HILL-COUNTRY.—These terms in RV represent Heb. (gib’ah, har) and Greek names for either an isolated eminence, or a table-land, or a mountainrange, or a mountainous district. Gib’ah denotes properly ‘the large rounded hills, mostly bare or nearly so, so conspicuous in parts of Palestine, especially in Judah.’ Cf. ‘Gibeah of Saul,’ ‘of Phinehas,’ ‘of the foreskins,’ ‘of Moreh,’ ‘of Hachilah,’ ‘of Ammah,’ ‘of Gareb,’ and ‘of Elohim.’ har is to gib’ah as the genus is to the species, and includes not merely a single mound, but also a range or a district. It is usually applied to Zion. It is especially the description of the central mountainous tract of Palestine reaching from the plain of Jezreel on the N. to the Negeb or dry country in the S.; the Shephēlah or lowlands of the S. W.; the midbar or moorland, and the ’arabah or steppes of the S. E. The best-known har—or hill-country in Palestine is the ‘hill-country of Ephraim,’ but besides this we hear of the ‘hillcountry of Judah’ (e.g. in Jos 11:21), the ‘hill-country of Naphtali’ (20:7), the ‘hillcountry of Ammon’ (Dt 2:37), and of Gilead (3:12). Among the eminences of Palestine as distinct from hill-districts are Zion, the hill of Samaria, the triplepeaked Hermon, Tabor, and Carmel.
W. F. Cobb.
HILLEL.—Father of Abdon (Jg 12:13, 15).
HIN.—See Weights and Measures.
HIND.—See Hart.
HINGE.—See House, § 6.
HINNOM, VALLEY OF (called also ‘valley of the son [Jer 7:32] or children [2 K 23:10] of Hinnom,’ and ‘the valley’ [2 Ch 26:9, Neh 2:13, 15, 3:13 and perhaps Jer 2:23]).—It was close to the walls of Jerusalem ‘by the entry of the gate Harsith’ (Jer 19:2 RV), possibly the Dung-gate. Evidently the Valley-gate opened into it (Neh 2:13, 3:13). It formed part of the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Jos 15:8, 18:18). The place acquired an evil repute on account of the idolatrous practices carried on there (2 K 23:10, 2 Ch 28:3, 33:6), and on this account Jeremiah (7:32, 19:6) announced that it was to receive the name ‘valley of Slaughter.’ Here perpetual fires are said to have been kept burning to consume the rubbish of the city. Such associations with the Valley led afterwards to Ge-hinnom (NT Gehenna) becoming the type of hell.
The situation of the Valley of Hinnom has been much disputed. Of the three valleys of Jerusalem—the Kidron on the E., the Tyropœon in the centre, and the Wady er-Rabābi on the W.—each has in turn been identified with it. In favour of the Kidron is the fact that the theological Gehinnom or Arab. Jahannum of Jewish, Christian, and early Moslem writers is located here; but this was probably a transference of name after the old geographical site was lost, for there are strong reasons (see below) against it. As the Tyropœon was incorporated within the city walls before the days of Manasseh, it is practically impossible that it could have been the scene of the sacrifice of children, which must have been outside the city bounds (2 K 23:10 etc.). The chief data are found in Jos 15:8, 18:16, where the boundary of Judah and Benjamin is described. If Bir Eyyūb is En-rogel, as certainly is most probable, then the Wady er-Rabābi, known traditionally as Hinnom, is correctly so designated. Then this Valley of Hinnom is a gai or gorge, but the Valley of Kidron is always described as a nachal (‘wady’). It is, of course, possible that the Valley of Hinnom may have included part of the open land formed by the junction of the three valleys below Siloam; and Topheth may have lain there, as is suggested by some authorities, but there is no necessity to extend the name beyond the limits of the actual gorge. The Wady er-Rabābi commences as a shallow open valley due W. of the Jaffa gate; near this gate it turns due South for about 1/3 of a mile, and then gradually curves to the East. It is this lower part, with its bare rocky scarps, that presents the characters of a gai or gorge. Near where the valley joins the wide Kidron is the traditional site of Akeldama.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HIPPOPOTAMUS.—See Behemoth.
HIRAH.—The Adullamite with whom Judah, according to the story of Gn 38
(J), appears to have entered into a kind of partnership in the matter of flocks. After Tamar had successfully carried out her stratagem, it was by the hand of his ‘friend’ Hirah that Judah sent the promised kid to the supposed qedēshāh (Gn 38:20 ff. ).
HIRAM.—1. King of Tyre, son and successor of Abihaal. When David was firmly established on his throne, Hiram, we are told, sent messengers to him, and, in order to show his goodwill, gave David materials for building his palace, sending at the same time workmen to assist in the building (2 S 5:11, 1 Ch 14:1. This first mention of Hiram is somewhat abrupt, and leads to the supposition that there must have been some earlier intercourse between him and David, the details of which have not come down to us. A real friendship, however, undoubtedly existed between the two (1 K 5:1), and this was extended to Solomon after the death of David. A regular alliance was made when Solomon came to the throne, Hiram supplying men and materials for the building of the house of the Lord, while Solomon, in return, sent corn and oil to Hiram. Another sign of friendliness was their joint enterprise in sending ships to Ophir to procure gold (1 K 9:26–28, 10:11 , 2 Ch 8:17, 18, 9:10, 21). A curious episode is recounted in 1 K 9:10, 14, according to which Solomon gave Hiram ‘twenty cities in the land of Galilee.’ Hiram was dissatisfied with the gift, though he gave Solomon ‘sixscore talents of gold.’ In the parallel account (2 Ch 8:1, 2) it is Hiram who gives cities (the number is not specified) to Solomon.
There is altogether considerable confusion in the Biblical references to Hiram, as a study of the passages in question shows. When these are compared with extraBiblical information which we possess in the writings of early historians, discrepancies are emphasized. While, therefore, the friendly intercourse between Hiram and Solomon (as well as with David) is unquestionably historical, it is not always possible to say the same of the details.
2. The name of an artificer from Tyre ‘filled with wisdom and understanding and cunning, to work all works in brass’ (see 1 K 7:18–47); he is also spoken of as ‘skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson …’ (2 Ch 2:14). There is a discrepancy regarding his parentage: in 1 K 7:14 he is said to have been the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father a man of Tyre: according to 2 Ch 2:14 his mother belonged to the tribe of Dan, though here, too, his father was a Tyrian.
The form of the name is usually Hiram in the Books of Samuel and Kings, but the Chronicler adheres uniformly to the form Huram, while we find also Hirom in 1 K 5:10, 18, 7:40.
W. O. E. Oesterley.
HIRE, HIRELING.—The former is used in AV alongside of its synonym ‘wages,’ by which it has been supplanted in mod. English as in Gn 31:8 RV ( cf.
30:18, 32f. with 29:15, 30:28 etc.). A hireling is a person ‘hired’ to work for a stipulated wage, such as a field-labourer (Mal 3:5), shepherd (Jn 10:12f.), or mercenary soldier (Is 16:14, cf. Jer 46:21). No imputation of unfaithfulness or dishonesty is necessarily conveyed by the term, although these ideas have now become associated with it owing to our Lord’s application of the word to an unfaithful shepherd in Jn 10:12, 13.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HITTITES.—A people said in the J document (Ex 3:8, 17) to have been one of the pre-Israelitish occupants of Palestine. The E document says they lived in the mountains (Nu 13:29). They are often included by D and his followers among the early inhabitants of the land, while P tells us (Gn 23) that Abraham bought from a Hittite the cave of Machpelah at Hebron. They are probably the people known in Egyptian inscriptions as Kheta, in Assyrian annals as Khatti, and in Homer (Od. xi. 521) as Kēteioi.
It is supposed that the carved figures found in many parts of Asia Minor, having a peculiar type of high hat and shoes which turn up at the toe, and containing hieroglyphs of a distinct type which are as yet undeciphered, are Hittite monuments. Assuming that this is correct, the principal habitat of the Hittites was
Asia Minor, for these monuments are found from Karabel, a pass near Smyrna, to
Erzerum, and from the so-called Niobe (originally a Hittite goddess), near Magnesia, to Jerabis, the ancient Carchemish, on the Euphrates. They have also been found at Zenjirli and Hamath in northern Syria (cf. Messerschmidt’s ‘Corp. Inscript. Hett.’ in Mitteilungen der Vorderas. Gesell. vol. v.; and Sayce, PSBA vol. xxviii. 91–95). It appears from these monuments that at Boghazkui east of the Halys, at Marash, and at various points in ancient Galatia, Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia the Hittites were especially strong. It is probable that their civilization was developed in Asia Minor, and that they afterwards pushed southward into northern Syria, invading a region as far eastward as the Euphrates.
This is confirmed by what we know of them from the inscriptions of other nations. Our earliest mention of them occurs in the annals of Thothmes iii. of Egypt (about b.c. 1500), to whom they paid tribute (cf. Breasted’s Ancient Records of Egypt, ii. 213).
In the reign of Amenophis iii. (about b.c. 1400) they attempted unsuccessfully to invade the land of Mittani on the Euphrates, and successfully planted themselves on the Orontes valley in Syria (cf. KIB v. 33, and 255, 257). In the reign of Amenophis iv. they made much greater advances, as the el-Amarna letters show. In the next dynasty Seti i. fought a battle with the Hittites between the ranges of the Lehanon (Breasted, op cit. iii. 71). In the reign of Rameses ii. Kadesh on the Orontes was in their hands. Rameses fought a great battle with them there, and afterwards made a treaty of peace with them (Breasted, op. cit. iii. 125 ff., 165 ff.).
Meren-Ptah and Rameses iii. had skirmishes with them, the latter as late as b.c. 1200. From the similarity of his name to the names of Hittite kings, Moore has conjectured (JAOS xix. 159, 160) that Sisera (Jg 5) was a Hittite. If so, in the time of Deborah (about b.c. 1150) a Hittite dynasty invaded northern Palestine.
About b.c. 1100 Tiglath-pileser i. of Assyria fought with Hittites (KIB i. 23). In David’s reign individual Hittites such as Ahimelech and Uriah were in Israel (1 S
26:6, 2 S 11:3 etc.). Kings of the Hittites are said to have been contemporary with
Solomon (1 K 10:29, 11:1), also a century later contemporary with Joram of Israel (2 K 7:6). In the 9th cent. the Assyrian kings Ashurnazir-pal (KIB i. 105) and Shalmaneser ii. (ib. p. 139) fought with Hittites, as did Tiglath-pileser iii. (ib. ii. 29), in the next century, while Sargon ii. in 717 (ib. ii. 43; Is 10:9) destroyed the kingdom of Carchemish, the last of the Hittite kingdoms of which we have definite record. The researches of recent years, especially those of Jensen and Breasted, make it probable that the Cilicians were a Hittite people, and that Syennesis, king of Cilicia, mentioned in Xenopbon’s Anabasis as a vassal king of Persia about b.c. 400, was a Hittite. Possibly the people of Lycaonia, whose language Paul and Barnabas did not understand (Ac 14:11), spoke a dialect of Hittite.
The Hittites accordingly played an important part in history from b.c. 1500 to
b.c. 700, and lingered on in many quarters much longer. It is probable that a Hittite kingdom in Sardis preceded the Lydian kingdom there (cf. Herod, i. 7). The Lydian Cyhele and Artemis of Ephesus were probably originally Hittite divinities.
Jensen, who has made a little progress in deciphering the Hittite inscriptions, believes them to be an Aryan people, the ancestors of the Armenians (cf. his Hittiter und Armenier), but this is very doubtful.
Politically the Hittites were not, so far as we know, united. They seem to have formed small city-kingdoms.
The religion of the Hittites seems to have had some features in common with Semitic religion (cf. Barton, Semitic Origins, pp. 311–316).
George A. Barton.
HIVITES.—One of the tribes of Palestine which the Israelites displaced ( Ex 3:8, 17 [J]). Our oldest source (J) says that they were the people who, fearing to meet the Israelites in battle, by a ruse made a covenant with them (Jos 9:7). A Deuteronomic editor states that their villages were Gibeon, Chephira, Kiriathjearim, and Beeroth (Jos 9:17). Gibeon was six miles N. W. of Jerusalem, and Beeroth ten miles N. of it. Probably, therefore, they inhabited a region north of Jerusalem. Gn 34:2 (P) makes the Shechemites Hivites, but this is of doubtful authority. The main part of the chapter is silent on this point. In Jos 11:3 and Jg 3:3 they seem to be located near Hermon in the Lebanon, but ‘Hivite’ is probably here a corruption of ‘Hittite’ (cf. Moore, Judges, p. 79). Deuteronomic editors introduce Hivites often in their list of Canaanitish peoples, usually placing them before Jebusites. Perhaps this indicates that they lived near Jerusalem. 2 S 24:7, though vague, is not inconsistent with this. Some have supposed Hivite to mean ‘villager,’ but the etymology is most uncertain. Really nothing is known of their racial affinities.
George A. Barton.
HIZKI.—A Benjamite (1 Ch 8:17).
HIZKIAH (AV Hezekiah).—A son of Neariah, a descendant of David (1 Ch
3:23).
HOBAB.—In E (Ex 3:1, 4:18, 18:1, 2ff.) the father-in-law of Moses is uniformly named Jethro. But Nu 10:29 (J) speaks of ‘Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite Moses’ father-in-law’ (hōthēn). It is uncertain how this should be punctuated, and whether Hobab or Reuel was Moses’ father-in-law. The former view is found in Jg 4:11 (cf. 1:16), the latter in Ex 2:18. The RV in Jg 1:16, 4:11 attempts to harmonize the two by rendering hōthēn ‘brother-in-law.’ But this harmonization is doubtful, for (1) though it is true that in Aram. and Arab. the cognate word can be used rather loosely to describe a wife’s relations, there is no evidence that it is ever so used in Heb.; and it would be strange to find the father and the brother of the same man’s wife described by the same term; (2) Ex 2:16 appears to imply that the priest of Midian had no sons. It is probable that the name Renel was added in v. 18 by one who misunderstood Nu 10:29. The suggestion that ‘Hobab the son of’ has accidentally dropped out before Renel is very improbable. Thus Jethro (E) and Hobab (J) are the names of Moses’ father-in-law, and Reuel is Hobab’s father. A Mohammedan tradition identifies Sho’ aib ( perhaps a corruption of Hobab), a prophet sent to the Midianites, with Moses’ father-inlaw. On his nationality, and the events connected with him, see Kenites, Midian, Jethro.
A. H. M’Neile.
HOBAH.—The place to which, acc. to Gn 14:16, Abraham pursued the defeated army of Chedorlaomer. It is described as ‘on the left hand (i.e. ‘to the north’) of Damascus.’ It is identified, with considerable probability, with the modern Hoba, 20 hours N. of Damascus.
HOBAIAH—See Habaiah.
HOD (‘majesty’).—An Asherite (1 Ch 7:37).
HODAVIAH.—1. A Manassite clan (1 Ch 5:24). 2. The name of a Benjamite family (1 Ch 9:7). 3. A Levitical family name (Ezr 2:40); called in Neh 7:43 Hodevah. 4. A descendant of David (1 Ch 3:24).
HODESH (‘new moon’).—One of the wives of Shaharaim, a Benjamite (1 Ch
8:9).
HODEVAH.—See Hodaviah, No. 3.
HODIAH.—1. A man of Judah (1 Ch 4:19). AV wrongly takes it as a woman’s name. 2. A Levite (Neh 8:7, 9:5, 10:10). 3. Another Levite (Neh 10:13). 4. One of those who sealed the covenant (Neh 10:18).
HOGLAH (‘partridge’).—Daughter of Zelophehad, Nu 26:33, 27:1, 36:11, Jos 17:3 ( P ).
HOHAM, king of Hebron, formed an alliance with other four kings against Gibeon, but was defeated by Joshua at Beth-horon, and put to death along with his allies at Makkedah (Jos 10:3 ff. ).
HOLINESS
I. IN OT
The Heb. words connected with the Semitic root qdsh (those connected with the root chrm may be left out of the inquiry: cf. art. Ban), namely, qōdesh ‘holiness,’ qādōsh ‘holy,’ qiddash, etc. ‘sanctify, the derived noun miqdāsh ‘sanctuary,’ qādēsh qedēshāh ‘whore,’ ‘harlot’—occur in about 830 passages in OT, about 350 of which are in the Pentateuch. The Aram. qaddīsh ‘holy’ is met with 13 times in the Book of Daniel, qādēsh and qedēshāh have almost exclusively heathen associations, qaddīsh is used in a few passages of the gods, but otherwise the Biblical words from this root refer exclusively to Jehovah, and persons or things connected with Him. The primary meaning seems at present indiscoverable, some making it to be that of ‘separation’ or ‘cutting off,’ others connecting with chādāsh ‘new,’ and the Assyr. quddushu ‘pure,’ ‘bright’; but neither brings conclusive evidence. In actual use the word is always a religious term, being, when applied to deity, almost equivalent to ‘divine,’ and meaning, when used of personsorthings, ‘set apart from common use for divine use.’
1. Holiness of God.—For all the Ancient East, Phœnicians and Babylonians as well as Hebrews, a god was a holy being, and anything specially appropriated to one, for example an ear-ring or nose-ring regarded as an amulet, was also holy. The conception of holiness was consequently determined by the current conception of God. If the latter for any people at any time was low, the former was low also, and vice versa. In the heathen world of the Ancient East the Divine holiness had no necessary connexion with character. The ethical element was largely or altogether absent. So a holy man, a man specially intimate with a god, need not he a moral man, as in Palestine at the present day, where holy men are anything but saints in the Western sense of the term (Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 149 f.). In ancient Israel the holiness of Jehovah may in the first instance have been ceremonial rather than ethical, but this cannot be proved. In the so-called Law of Holiness (H, contained chiefly in Lv 17–26)—a document which, though compiled about the time of Ezekiel, probably contains very ancient elements—the ceremonial and the ethical are inextricably blended. The holiness which Jehovah requires, and which is evidently to be thought of as to some extent of the same nature as His own: ‘Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Lv 19:2) , includes not only honesty (19:11, 36), truthfulness (v. 11), respect for parents (v. 3 , 20:9), fair dealing with servants (19:13), kindness to strangers (v. 34), the weak and helpless (vv. 14, 32), and the poor (v. 9f.), social purity (20:11ff., 18ff.), and love of neighbours (19:18), but also abstinence from blood as an article of food (17:10ff., 19:26), from mixtures of animals, seeds, and stuffs (19:19), and from the fruit of newly planted trees for the first four years (v. 23ff.); and, for priests, compliance with special rules about mourning and marriage (21:1–15). In other words, this holiness was partly ceremonial, partly moral, without any apparent distinction between the two, and this double aspect of holiness is characteristic of P (in which H was incorporated) as a whole, stress being naturally laid by the priestly compiler or compilers on externals. In the prophets, on the other hand, the ethical element greatly preponderates. The vision of the Holy Jehovah in Isaiah, which wrung from the seer the cry ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips’ (Is 6:5) , leaves the ceremonial aspect almost completely out of sight. The holiness of Jehovah there is His absolute separation from moral evil, His perfect moral purity.
But there is another element clearly brought out in this vision—the majesty of the Divine holiness: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory’ (v. 3). This aspect also comes out very distinctly in the great psalm of the Divine holiness, perhaps from the early Greek period, where the holy Jehovah is declared to have ‘a great and terrible name’ (Ps 99:3) and to be’ high above all peoples’ (v. 2), and in one of the later portions of the Book of Isaiah, where He is described as ‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy’ (Is 57:15). The holiness of God in OT is characterized by stainless purity and awful majesty.
2. Holy persons and things.—In ancient Israel all connected with God was holy, either permanently or during the time of connexion. He dwelt in a holy heaven (Ps 20:6), sat on a holy throne (Ps 47:8), and was surrounded by holy attendants (Ps 89:7). His Spirit was holy (Ps 51:11, Is 63:10f.), His name was holy (Lv 20:3 etc.), His arm was holy (Ps 98:1), and His way was holy (Is 35:8). His chosen people Israel was holy (Lv 19:2, Dt 7:6 etc.), their land was holy ( Zec 2:12), the Temple was holy (Ps 11:4 etc.), and the city of the Temple (Is 52:1, Neh 11:1). Every part of the Temple (or Tabernacle) was holy, and all its utensils and appurtenances (1 K 8:4); the altars of incense and burnt-offering (Ex 30:27f.), the flesh of a sacrifice (Hag 2:12), the incense (Ex 30:36), the table (Ex 30:27), the shew-bread (1 S 21:6), the candlestick (Ex 30:27), the ark (v.26, 2 Ch 35:3), and the anointing oil (Ex 30:25). Those attached more closely to the service of Jehovah—priests (Lv 21:6, H), Levites (Nu 8:17f.), and perhaps to some extent prophets (2 K 4:9),—were holy (with ceremonial holiness) in a higher degree than others. The combination of merely external and ethical holiness as the requirement of Jehovah lasted until the advent of Christianity, the proportion of the elements varying with the varying conception of God.
II. IN NT
The word ‘holiness’ in EV stands for hosiotēs (Lk 1:75, Eph 4:24), hagiotēs (2
Co 1:12 RV, ‘AV having another reading; He 12:10), hagiōsynē (Ro 1:4, 2 Co 7:1 , 1 Th 3:13), hagiasmos (in AV, Ro 6:19, 22, 1 Th 4:7, 1 Ti 2:15, He 12:14, but in the other 5 passages in which the word occurs we find ‘sanctification ‘; RV has ‘sanctification’ throughout), and for part of hieroprepēs (Tit 2:3), ‘as becometh holiness,’ RV ‘reverent in demeanour.’ The idea of holiness, however, is conveyed mainly by the adjective hagios ‘holy’ (about 230 times) and the verb hagiazō (27 times, in 24 of which it is rendered in EV ‘sanctify’), also by hosios (Ac 2:27 , 13:34f., 1 Ti 2:8, Tit 1:8, He 7:26, Rev 15:4, 16:5, not in the text of AV) and hieros (1 Co 9:13, 2 Ti 3:15; RV has in both passages ‘sacred’). Of these words by far the most important is the group which has hagios for its centre, and which is the real equivalent of qōdesh, qādōsh, etc., hieros referring rather to external holiness and hosios to reverence, piety, hagios, which is freely used in LXX, but is very rare in classical Greek and not frequent in common Greek, never occurring (outside of Christian texts) in the seven volumes of papyri issued by the Egypt Exploration
Society, is scarcely ever used in NT in the ceremonial sense (cf. 1 Co 7:14, 2 P
1:18) except in quotations from OT or references to Jewish ritual (He 9:2, 3, 8, 24 , 10:19 etc.), and in current Jewish expressions, e.g. ‘the holy city,’ Mt 4:5 etc. Otherwise it is purely ethical and spiritual.
Three uses demand special notice. 1. The term ‘holy is seldom applied directly to God (Lk 1:49, Jn 17:11, 1 P 1:15f., Rev 4:8), but it is very often used of the Spirit of God (‘the Holy Spirit’ 94 times, 56 of which are in the writings of Luke: cf. art. Holy Spirit). 2. The epithet is used in 10 passages of Christ (‘the Holy One of God,’ Mk 1:24, Lk 4:34, Jn 6:69; also Lk 1:35, Ac 3:14, 4:27, 30, He 7:26, 1 Jn 2:20, Rev 3:7). 3. It is very often used of Christians. They are called ‘saints’ or ‘holy ones’ (hagioi) 60 times, 39 in the Pauline Epistles. The expression is no doubt of OT origin, and means ‘consecrated to God,’ with the thought that this consecration involves effort after moral purity (cf. Lightfoot on Ph 1:1). In this use the ethical element is always in the foreground. So we find hagios associated with amōmos ‘without hlemish,’ RV Eph 1:4, 5:27, Col 1:22; and with dikaios ‘righteous,’ RV Mk 6:20, Ac 3:14. The three words hagiotēs, hagiōsynē, and hagiasmos designate respectively the quality of holiness, the state of holiness, and the process or result. For the sphere and source of holiness, cf. Sanctification.
W. Taylor Smith.
HOLM TREE.—See Cypress.
HOLOFERNES.—According to the Book of Judith, Holofernes was the general entrusted by Nehuchadnezzar, ‘king of Nineveh,’ with the task of wreaking vengeance on ‘all the earth’ (2:1, 4). Before his vast army nation after nation submitted and acknowledged Nehuchadnezzar as a god. The Jews alone would not yield; and Holofernes accordingly blockaded their city of Bethulia. For the subsequent story and the death of Holofernes at the hands of Judith, see art. Judith.
Holofernes has been variously identified with Ashurbanipal, Cambyses,
Orophernes of Cappadocia (a friend of Demetrius Soter, the enemy of the Jews), Nicanor (the Syrian general conquered by Judas Maccahæus), Scaurus ( Pompey’s lieutenant in Syria), and Severus (Hadrian’s general).
W. M. Nesbit.
HOLON.—1. A city of Judah in the Hebron hills, given to the Levites ( Jos
15:51, 21:15). In the parallel passage 1 Ch 6:58 it is called Hilen. The ruin Beil Aūla, in the lower hills west of Hebron, would be a suitable site. 2. A city of Moab near Heshbon (Jer 48:21). Its site has not been recovered.
HOLY OF HOLIES, HOLY PLACE.—See Tabernacle, and Temple.
HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL.—A title of God used with especial frequency by Isaiah to express His transcendence and majesty. The idea of God’s holiness is, of course, much older than Isaiah, but to him, as to no one before, it was the central and most essential attribute of God, far more so than His power or majesty. We can trace this idea from the very moment of his call in the Temple. As he felt himself on that day standing in God’s presence, his first thought was of his own uncleanness, and this wrung from him a cry of anguish (Is 6:5; cf. St. Peter’s cry in Lk 5:8). When this passed away, he heard the angelic choir chanting the refrain, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.’ From henceforth he thought of God most often as a pure, unique, spiritual Being removed from all the imperfections of earth—an idea found also in some of the Psalms (e.g. 71:22, 78:41, 89:18). It was in a special sense against the Assyrian invaders that God vindicated His claim to this title (2 K 19:22), by showing that the might of man was powerless against His own people when protected by Him. In this sense the holiness and the omnipotence of God are nearly allied, though never synonymous.
H. C. O. Lanchester. HOLY SEPULCHRE.—See Jerusalem, § 7.
HOLY SPIRIT.—The Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit arises out of the experience of the Church, as it Interprets, and is itself interpreted by, the promise of the Comforter given by Jesus to His disciples (Jn 14–16). This appeal to experience follows the method adopted by St. Peter in his Pentecostal sermon ( Ac 2:33). The teaching may briefly be stated as follows: The Holy Spirit is God; a Person within the Godhead; the Third Person, the knowledge of whom depends on the revelation of the Father and the Son, from both of whom He proceeds. He was in the world, and spoke by the prophets before the Word became flesh, and was Himself the agent in that creative act. Through Him the atonement was consummated. He is the life-giving presence within the universal Church, the Divine agent in its sacramental and authoritative acts; communicating Himself as a presence and power to the individual Christian; mediating to him forgiveness and new birth; nourishing, increasing, and purifying his whole personality; knitting him into the fellowship of saints; and finally, through the resurrection of the body, bringing him to the fulness of eternal life. The purpose of this article is to justify this teaching from Scripture.
1. The promise of Christ.—It is unnecessary to discuss the historical character of the Last Discourses as presented in John, because the fact of the promise of the Spirit is sufficiently attested by St. Luke (Lk 24:49, Ac 1:4, 5, 8, 2:33), and its significance corroborated by the whole tenor of the NT. The specific promise of the Paraclete (Jn 14:16, 17, 26, 15:26, 16:7–15) must be read in view of the wider promise of the Abiding Presence, which is its background (14:2, 3, 18–23, 15:4– 11). The first truth to be grasped by the Christian disciple is that to see Jesus is to see the Father (14:9, cf. 12:45), because the Son abides in the Father (v. 10 f., 17:21, 23). Next he must realize the true meaning of the comfort and peace he has found in Christ as the way through which he attains his own true end, which is to come to the Father and abide in Him (14:6–9, 17:21; cf. He 7:25, 10:19, 20). So the promise takes, first, the form of a disclosure. If Jesus is not only to embody God but to be the channel through which the faithful have communion with Him, He must Himself depart to prepare abiding-places in the Father’s house (14:2), that He may lift men to the sphere of His own eternal life, and that where He is they too may be (v. 5, cf. 12:26). It is necessary, therefore, not only that the disciple should behold Jesus (16:16, 17, 19) as the Apostles did with their eyes (1 Jn 1:1, Jn 19:35) and as later believers do through the Apostolic word (17:20, Lk 1:2), but that he should abide in Him (Jn 15:4). Thus the purpose of the Incarnation is fulfilled in the linking up of the chain—the Father in the Son; the Son in the Father; the believer in the Son; mankind in God.
The method by which Jesus is to consummate this reconciling work is declared in the promise of the Paraclete. (For the question whether the word Paraklētos is to be translated ‘Comforter,’ or ‘Advocate,’ see art. Advocate.) Having promised another ‘Comforter,’ the Lord proceeds to identify Him with the Spirit (Jn 14:17) , which enables Him to give to the Person, of whom He speaks, the name of ‘the Holy Spirit’ (v. 26, the Greek having the definite article before both ‘Spirit’ and ‘Holy’). Only once in His previous teaching is He reported to have employed this title (Mk 3:29 ||). Mk 12:36 and 13:11 appear to supply other instances, but comparison should be made with the parallel passages in either case (Mt 22:43, Mt 10:20, Lk 21:15). And there is something abnormal in the warning concerning the unpardonable sin, being one of the hard sayings fully interpreted only in the light of subsequent events) cf. Mk 8:34, Jn 6:58). But ‘Spirit’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ occur as used by Christ in the Synoptics (Mt 12:28, Lk 11:13; Gr. no definite article) and in John (3:8). Too much cannot be made of this argument, as we are at best dealing with a Greek tr. of the words actually used by our Lord. But it remains true that in these cases a new and unexpected development is given to old ideas, as when Nicodemus fails to understand the spiritual birth (Jn 3:10), or disciples are scandalized by the spiritual food (6:60), yet both the terms used and the thoughts represented are familiar, and postulate a previous history of doctrine, the results of which ‘a master in Israel’ ought at least to have apprehended. The passage read by Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth (Lk 4:18, 19, Is 61:1, 2) forms a link between the Gospel and the OT in respect to the Spirit.
2. The Spirit in OT
(1) General. The OT never uses the phrase ‘the Holy Spirit.’ In two passages the epithet ‘holy’ is applied to the Spirit, but in each it is still further qualified by a possessive pronoun (Ps 51:11 ‘thy,’ Is 63:10 ‘his’). But the conception of the ‘Spirit of God’ is characteristic, being closely related to the Word (Schultz, OT Theol. il. 184). The distinction between them is that between the breath and the voice, the latter being the articulate expression of thought, the former the force by which the word is made living. The Spirit is the life of God, and, as such, is lifegiving. The account of creation in Genesis puts us in possession of the root idea (1:2, 3). ‘It was no blind force inherent in nature which produced this beautiful world, but a divine Thinker’ (Cheyne, OP, p. 322). The Spirit is the life of God communicated by a ‘word’ (cf. Ps 33:6, 51:11, 104:30, 139:7). This creative principle, which animates the universe, finds a special sphere of activity in man (Gn 2:7, Job 27:3, 33:4), who by its operation becomes not only a living soul, but a rational being created in the image of God and reproducing the Divine life ( Gn 1:27). Thus the Spirit is the source of the higher qualities which manhood develops—administrative capacity in Joseph (Gn 41:38), military genius in Joshua (Nu 27:18), judicial powers in the seventy elders (Nu 11:17), the craftsman’s art in Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex 31:2, 6). So far there is nothing directly moral in its influence. But above all it is the Spirit that reproduces in man the moral character of God (Ps 51:11, 143:10, Is 30:1, Neh 9:20), though this aspect is by no means so clearly presented as might have been expected. Wickedness grieves His Spirit ( Is 63:10), which strives with the rebellious (Gn 6:3, Neh 9:30). This comprehensive dealing, affecting alike intellect, affections, and will, arises out of the central conception, stated in the Book of Wisdom, that God made man ‘an image of his own proper being’ (2:23).
(2) The Chosen Race. The epithet ‘holy’ as applied in the OT to the Spirit, though it may include positive righteousness and purity, arises in the first instance out of the negative meaning primarily attaching to holiness in Scripture; namely, separation to Him whose being is not compassed by human infirmity and mortal limitations. The Spirit, therefore, in its more general bearing, is the indwelling influence which consecrates all things to the fulfilment of the universal purpose. But Israel believed that God had a particular purpose, which would be accomplished through His presence in the Chosen Nation. A special consecration rested upon Jacob, in view of which the Gentiles might be regarded as aliens, sinners, who were outside the purpose (Gal 2:15, Eph 2:12, 4:18). Thus the presence of God’s good or holy Spirit is the peculiar endowment of the Hebrew people (Neh 9:20, Is 63:11), which becomes the organ of the Divine selfmanifestation, the prophetic nation (Ps 105:15, cf. Is 44:1 etc.). The term ‘prophet’ is also applied to those who were representative leaders—to Abraham (Gn 20:7) , Moses (Dt 18:15), Miriam (Ex 15:20), Deborah (Jg 4:4), and Samuel. The Spirit
‘came upon’ David not only as the psalmist (2 S 23:2) but as the ideal king (1 S 16:13). The instruments of God’s ‘preferential action’—Israel, and those who guided its destiny—became the channel of revelation, the ‘mouth’ (Ex 4:16) through which the message was delivered. More directly still, God ‘spake by the mouth of his holy prophets’ (Lk 1:70; cf. Is 51:16, Jer 1:9), who hear the word at His mouth (Ezk 3:17, 1 S 3:11).
(3) Prophecy. This brings us to the yet more definite sphere of the Spirit’s action in the OT. ‘It appears to the earlier ages mainly as the spirit of prophecy’ (Schultz). Among the later Jews also the Holy Spirit was equivalent to the spirit of prophecy (Cheyne). From Samuel onwards prophecy takes its place alongside the monarchy as an organized function of the national life. From the visions of seers (1 S 9:9, 2 S 24:11, 2 Ch 9:29) and the ecstatic utterance of the earlier nebi’im (1 S
10:6–10, 19:23, 24, 2 K 3:15; cf. Nu 11:25) to the finished literature of Isaiah and Jeremiah, revelation is essentially a direct and living communication of the Spirit to the individual prophet (Dt 34:10, Am 3:8, Mic 3:8). Though the Spirit is still an influence rather than a personality, yet as we rise to the higher plane of prophecy, where the essential thought is that of God working, speaking, manifesting Himself personally, we approach the NT revelation. ‘The Lord God hath sent me, and his spirit’ (Is 48:16, cf. Mt 10:20).
(4) The Spirit and Messiah. The point of contact between the OT and NT is the expectation of a special outpouring of the Spirit in connexion with the
establishment of Messiah’s Kingdom (Ezk 39:29, Jl 2:28, 29, Zec 12:10; cf.
Is 35 , Jer 31:7–9). This was to distribute itself over the whole nation, which
was no longer to be by representation from among its members the prophetic
medium of Jehovah’s messages, but universally the organ of the Spirit. The
diffusion of the gift to ‘all flesh’ corresponds with that extension of the
Kingdom to include all nations in the people of God which is characteristic of
later Hebrew prophecy ( Is 56:7 etc., Ps 87, Lk 2:32). But it is on Messiah
Himself that the Spirit is to rest in its fulness (Is 11:1–5). Its presence is
His anointing (Is 61:1). This is the connexion in which the relation of the
Spirit to the manifestation of righteousness is most clearly shown (Is 11:5, Ps
45:4–7). So when Jesus of Nazareth begins His work as the Anointed One of
Hebrew expectation, there lights upon Him what to the outward eye appears as a
dove (Mk 1:10 ||), emblem of that brooding presence ( cf. Gn 1:2) which was to
find its home in the Messiah (Jn 1:33 ‘abiding’); in the power of which He was
to ‘fulfil all righteousness’ (Mt 3:15); to be driven into the wilderness for
His fight with temptation (4:1); to return to His ministry in Galilee (Lk
4:14); to work as by the finger of God (Lk 11:20, cf. ||); and to accomplish
His destiny in making the Atonement (He 9:14). 
3. Theology of the Holy Spirit.—These two elements, namely, the promise of a Paraclete to the disciples, based on their experience of Himself, and the identification of that Paraclete with the Spirit of God, based on the older revelation, combine to produce that language in which Jesus expressed the Divine Personality of the Holy Spirit, and upon which the Christian theology of the subject is founded. When first the Holy Spirit is mentioned, Jesus says ‘whom the Father will send in my name’ (Jn 14:26). At the next stage of the revelation of the Comforter, it is ‘whom I will send unto you from the Father’ (15:26). Then it is the Spirit Himself coming (16:7, 13), guiding (v. 18), declaring truth (v. 13), and glorifying the Son (v. 14).
(1) He is from the Father. The revelation of Jesus Christ is primarily a showing of the Father (14:8, 9). The principle of Jehovah’s life thus becomes in the NT the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father (15:26). This relation is consistently preserved even when the Spirit is represented as Christ’s own gift (16:15). Just as the Son is spoken of as God only in relation to the Father, and as subordinate to, in the sense of deriving His being from, Him, so there is no independent existence or even revelation of the Spirit. The technical term ‘proceeding,’ as adopted in the creeds, is taken from 15:26, which, while it refers immediately to the coming of the Spirit into the world, is seen, when the proportions of Scripture are considered, to follow a natural order inherent in the Divine Being (cf. Rev 22:1). Already in His teaching the Lord had spoken of the ‘Spirit of your Father (Mt 10:20). And the special relation of the Spirit to the Father is prominent in St. Paul. By the Spirit God raised up Jesus and will quicken men’s mortal bodies (Ro 8:11). in the Spirit the disciple is justified (1 Co 6:11) and enabled to realize his redeemed sonship and address God as Father (Ro 8:14–16, Eph 2:18). His relation to God (i.e. the Father) is further asserted in many places (e.g. 1 Co 2:10–12, 2 Co 1:22, 5:5, Eph 4:30).
(2) This is, however, not inconsistent with, but rather results in, a dependence upon the Son (Jn 15:26, 16:15, cf. 15:15) which enables the Spirit to become the organ, whereby is applied to mankind the redemptive efficacy of the Incarnate Life (14:17, 18, 21, 23, 26, 16:13, 14). Jesus speaks of the Spirit as His own gift (15:26). As Christ came in the Father’s name, so will the Spirit come in Christ’s name (14:26, cf. 5:43). His office is to be the witness and interpreter of Christ (15:26, 16:14). The testimony of the disciples is to reflect this witness (15:27). The dependence of the Spirit on the Son, both in His eternal being and in His incarnate life, is fully horne out by the language of the NT generally. He is the Spirit of God’s Son (Gal 4:6), of the Lord [Jesus] (2 Co 3:17), of Jesus (Ac 16:7 RV), of Jesus Christ (Ph 1:19), of Christ (Ro 8:9, 1 P 1:11). It is to disciples only that the promise is made (Jn 14:17, 17:9, 20, 21), and the experience of Pentecost corresponds with it (Ac 2:1–4), the extension of the gift being offered to those only who by baptism are joined to the community (Ac 2:38).
(3) The operations of the Spirit thus bestowed are all personal in character. He teaches (Jn 14:26), witnesses (15:26), guides and foretells (16:13), and glorifies the Son (v. 14). So in the Acts He forbids (16:7), appoints (13:2), decides (15:28). To
Him the lie of Ananias is told (5:3). And the testimony of the Epistles coincides (1 Co 2:10, 3:16, 6:19, Ro 8 passim, etc.). The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is parallel with the grace of Christ and the love of God in 2 Co 13:14. To the world His presence is not power, but condemnation. He is to convict the world (Jn 16:8) by carrying on in the life and work of the Church the testimony of Jesus (Jn 15:26, 27 , 1 Co 12:3, 1 Jn 5:7, Rev 19:10), in whom the prince of this world is judged ( Jn 12:31, 14:30). The witness, the power, and the victory of Christ are transferred to the society of His disciples through the Spirit.
4. Work of the Spirit in the Church
(1) While anticipated by His work in the world (Ps 139:7, Wis 1:7) and foreshadowed by His special relations with Israel, the presence of the Spirit is yet so far a new experience for Christians that St. John, speaking of the age before Pentecost, can say that ‘the Spirit was not yet [given]’ (Jn 7:39 RV). As from the point of view of the Chosen Race, those without were ‘sinners of the Gentiles’ ( Gal 2:15), ‘without God in the world’ (Eph 2:12), so the world outside Christ is a stranger to the Spirit. This is made clear by the facts of Pentecost. The experience of the descent, attested, to those who were the subjects of Divine favour, by the wind and fiery tongues (Ac 2:2), was granted only to the Apostles and their companions in the upper chamber (2:1, cf. 1:13, 14). The phenomena which followed (2:6) were interpreted by those outside, who had heard without understanding the rushing sound, either as a mysterious gift of power (v. 12) or as the effect of wine (v. 13).
Whether the tongues were foreign languages, as the narrative of Acts taken by itself would suggest (v. 6), must, in the light of 1 Co 14:1–19, where the gift is some form of ecstatic speech needing the correlative gift of interpretation, he regarded as at least doubtful; see also Ac 10:46, 11:15. But that it enabled those who were not Palestinian Jews (vv. 8–11) to realize ‘the mighty works of God’ ( v. 11) is certain. The importance attached to it in the Apostolic Church was due, perhaps, to the peculiar novelty of the sign as understood to have been foretold by Christ Himself (Mk 16:17), more certainly to the fact that it was a manifestation characteristic of the Christian community. See, further, Tongues, Gift of.
Though, by the time that St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, prophecy was already attaining higher importance as a more useful and therefore greater gift (1 Co 12:28–31, 14:1), the memory of the Impression created at Pentecost, as of the arrival in the world of a new and unparalleled power, united to the spiritual exaltation felt by the possessor of the gift, was still living in the Church. Nor can the Pentecostal preaching of St. Peter, with its offer of the Holy Spirit to those that repented and were baptized (Ac 2:38), be regarded otherwise than as evidence, alike in the Apostles and in those who were ‘added to them’ (v. 47), that they were dealing with a new experience. That this was a transfer of the Spirit which dwelt in Christ from His baptism (Mk 1:10||), carrying with it the fulness of the Incarnate Life (Jn 1:16, Eph 3:14–19, 4:13), was attested by the miracles wrought in His name (Ac 3:6, 7, 4:30 etc.), the works which He had done and which His disciples were also to do (Jn 14:12), bearing witness to a unity of power.
(2) The Incarnation. That the presence of the Holy Spirit was not only a new experience for themselves, but also, as dwelling in the Incarnate Son, a new factor in the world’s history, was recognized by the primitive Christians in proportion as they apprehended the Apostolic conception of the Person of Christ. One of the earliest facts in Christian history that demands explanation is the separation from the Apostolic body of the Jewish party in the Church, which, after the fall of Jerusalem, hardened into the Ebionite sects. The difference lies in the perception by the former of that new element in the humanity of Jesus which is prominent in the Christology of the Pauline Epistles (Ro 1:4, 5:12–21, 1 Co 15:20–28, 2 Co 8:9 , Gal 4:4, Ph 2:5–11, Col 2:9).
It is all but certain that this language depends upon the acceptance of the Virgin Birth, which the sects above mentioned, because they had no use for it, tended to deny. The Apostles were enabled through a knowledge of this mystery to recognize Jesus as the second Adam, the quickening spirit, the beginning of the new creation of God (Rev 3:14, cf. 21:5, 6). If the narrative of the Annunciation in Luke (1:35) be compared with the Prologue of John (1:1–18) and with the account of Creation in Gn 1, the full import of this statement becomes apparent. The Spirit overshadows Mary as He brooded upon the face of the waters. The manifestation of the Messiah was, therefore, no mere outpouring of the spirit of prophecy even in measure hitherto unequalled, but God visiting and redeeming His people through the incarnation of His image (He 1:1–3, Col 1:15).
St. Paul’s protest, therefore, against Judaic Christianity, which, in spite of temporary misgivings on the part of St. Peter and St. James (Gal 2:11, 12) , received the assent of the Apostolic witnesses, resulted from a true interpretation of his experience of that Holy Spirit into which he had been baptized (Ac 9:17, 18). The Gentiles, apart from circumcision (Gal 5:2, cf. Ac 15), were capable of the Holy Spirit as well as the Jews, by the enlargement of human nature through union with God in Christ, and by that alone (Gal 4:5, 6, 6:15, 2 Co 3:17, 18; cf. Ro. 8:29 , 1 Co 15:49). Thus, though the Apostolic preaching was the witness to Jesus and the Resurrection, beginning from the baptism of John (Ac 1:21, 22), the Apostolic record is necessarily carried back to the narratives of the Infancy. The ministry of reconciliation, though fulfilled in the power of the baptismal Spirit (Lk 4:14) , depended for its range on the capacity of the vessel already fashioned by the same Spirit (1:35) for His habitation—God was in Christ (2 Co 5:19).
(3) Union with Christ. What, therefore, the Apostolic community claimed to possess was not merely the aptitude for inspiration, as when the Spirit spoke in old times by the mouth of the prophets, but union with the life and personality of their Master (Jn 17:23), through the fellowship of a Spirit (2 Co 13:14, Ph 2:1) which was His (Ph 1:19). The Acts is the record of the Spirit’s expanding activity in the organic and growing life of the Christian Church. The ‘things concerning the kingdom’ (1:3), of which Christ spoke before His Ascension, are summed up in the witness to be given ‘unto the uttermost part of the earth’ (v. 8) and in the promise of power (v. 8). The events subsequently recorded are a series of discoveries as to the potentialities of this new life. The Epistles set before us, not systematically, but as occasion serves, the principles of the Spirit’s action in this progressive experience, corporate and individual.
(4) Spiritual gifts. The NT teaching with regard to spiritual gifts (wh. see) springs out of the conception of the Church as the mystical body of Christ ( Eph 1:22, 2:16–20, 4:16, 1 Co 12:12). The Holy Spirit is the living principle distributed throughout the body (1 Co 12:13, Eph 2:18, 4:4). The point of supreme importance to the Christian is to have the inward response of the Spirit to the Lordship of Christ (1 Co 12:3). This life is universally manifested in love (ch. 13), to strive after which is ever the ‘more excellent way’ (12:31). But, though bestowed on all
Christians alike, it is distributed to each ‘according to the measure of the gift of
Christ’ (Eph 4:7). The principle of proportion is observed by Him who has
‘tempered the body together’ (1 Co 12:24). The same gifts or manifestations of the
Spirit are not, therefore, to be expected in all believers or in all ages. They are
given that the whole body may profit (12:7). They are correlative to the part which each has to fulfil in the organic structure of the whole (12:14–20, Eph 4:16). The desire for them, though not discouraged (1 Co 12:31, 14:1), must be regulated by consideration of the needs of the Church (14:12) and the opportunities of service (Ro 12:1–6, cf. 1 P 5:5). ‘Each “gifted” individual becomes himself a gift’ ( Gore ).
Nowhere do we find any attempt to make a complete enumeration of spiritual gifts. In Eph 4:11, where the completion of the structure of Christ’s body is the main thought (v. 12), four classes of ministerial function are named. In Ro 12:6–8 , where a just estimate of the individual’s capacity for service is prominent, the list is promiscuous, exceptional gifts like prophecy, ministerial functions like teaching, and ordinary graces like liberality, being mentioned indifferently. Local circumstances confine the lists of 1 Co 12:8–10, 28 to the ‘greater gifts’ (v. 31) , those granted for more conspicuous service, most of which are tokens of God’s exceptional activity. The object of the Apostle in this catalogue is to show that tongues are by no means first in importance. ‘Faith’ in v. 9 is not to be confused with the primary virtue of 13:13, but is interpreted by 13:2 (cf. Mt 17:20).
(5) Inspiration. It is in this connexion that inspiration as applied to the Bible must be brought into relation with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. No theory, as applying to the whole Canon, is in the nature of the case to be expected in the NT itself. But prophecy is one of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Co 12:10, 28), and it is clear that the prophets were recognized as a distinct order in the Apostolic Church ( Ac 11:27, 13:1, 21:10; cf. 1 Ti 1:18, 4:14), though there was nothing professional in this ministry (Ac 19:6, 21:9). The type was undoubtedly that of the OT prophets (see above), and a distinct link with the ancient line is found in St. Peter’s reference to the words of Joel as fulfilled at Pentecost (Ac 2:16, 17, 18). Agabus prophesies by the Spirit (11:28). He adopts the method of signs (21:11) and the phrase ‘Thus saith the Holy Spirit’ (cf. OT ‘Thus saith the Lord’). Here, then, we have a gift that was conceived as perpetuating the mouthpiece whereby the will of God was revealed to the fathers (H 1:1). The inspiration of the OT Scriptures as understood in the 1st cent. of the Christian era was undoubtedly regarded as an extension of the prophetic gift. They were the oracles of God (Ac 7:38, Ro 3:2, He 5:12), and as such ‘the sacred writings’ (2 Ti 3:15), profitable because inbreathed by God for spiritual ends (v. 16). The connexion with prophecy is explicitly drawn out in 2 P 1:20, 21, the same Epistle showing the process by which the writings of Apostles were already beginning to take similar rank (3:15, 16, cf. Eph 3:5). That the Bible is either verbally accurate or inerrant is no more a legitimate deduction from this principle than is ecclesiastical infallibility from that of the Abiding Presence in the Church. In either case the method of the Spirit’s activity must be judged by experience. Nor, in face of the express declaration of St. Paul, that ‘the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets’ (1 Co 14:32), may we tolerate any theory which impairs the freedom of human personality.
(6) The laying on of hands in the ministration of the Spirit seems to have been adopted by a spontaneous impulse in the primitive community, and to have become immediately an established ordinance. The place accorded to the practice in He 6:2, as belonging to the alphabet of gospel knowledge, attests the importance attached to it. Like baptism, its roots are in the OT, where it is found as an act of dedication (Nu 8:9, 10, 12, 27:18–23; see Schultz, OT Theol. i. 391) or benediction (Gn 48:14, 15). Christ uses it in blessing the children (Mk 10:16). The Apostles adopt it as the sign, joined with prayer, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, by which they effected consecration to an office or function (Ac 6:6; cf. 1 Ti 4:14 , 5:22 (? see below), 2 Ti 1:6), or conferred blessing on the baptized (Ac 8:14–24 , 19:5, 6). The offer of money to Peter at Samaria (8:18) shows that the rite might be, and in this case was, followed by exceptional manifestations, like those which appeared at Pentecost; and that the fallacy which awakened Simon’s covetousness was the identification of the gift with these effects. Though associated with the bestowal of the Spirit, the laying on of hands has not yet been reduced to a technical rite in a crystallized ecclesiastical system. Ananias uses it in the recovery of Saul’s sight (Ac 9:12, 17); the Antiochene Church, not probably in ordaining Barnabas and Saul, but in sending them forth to a particular mission (Ac 13:3). In Mk 16:18 and Ac 28:8 it is a symbol of healing (cf. Mk 1:41, 5:23, 6:5, 8:23, Rev
1:17, also Ja 5:14, 15); in 1 Ti 5:22 not improbably of absolution (see Hort, Ecclesia, p. 214). According to 2 Ti 1:6, it was used by St. Paul in conveying spiritual authority to his representative at Ephesus; or, if the reference be the same as in 1 Ti 4:14, in the ordination of Timothy to a ministerial function. The symbolism is natural and expressive, and its employment by the Christian Church was immediately justified in experience (e.g. Ac. 19:6). Its connexion with the bestowal of specific gifts, like healing, or of official authority, like that of the Seven (Ac 6:6), is easily recognized.
A more difficult question to determine is its precise relation to baptism, where the purpose of the ministration is general. The Holy Spirit is offered by St. Peter to such as repent and are baptized (Ac 2:38, cf. 1 Co 12:13); while of those whom Philip had baptized at Samaria (Ac 8:12) it is expressly asserted that He had ‘fallen upon none of them’ (v. 16). It may have been that the experience of the Apostles, as empowered first by the risen Christ (Jn 20:22), and then by the Pentecostal descent (Ac 2:4), led them to distinguish stages in the reception of the Spirit, and that the apparent discrepancy would be removed by a fuller knowledge of the facts. But this uncertainty does not invalidate the positive evidence which connects the ministration of the Spirit with either ordinance. See also Laying on of Hands.
J. G. Simpson HOMAM.—See Hemam.
HOMER.—See Weights and Measures.
HOMICIDE.—See Crimes, § 7, Refuge [Cities of].
HONEST, HONESTY.—In 2 Es 16:49 ‘honest’ has the meaning of ‘chaste.’ Elsewhere it means either ‘honourable’ or ‘becoming.’ For the meaning ‘honourable’ compare Ru 1:22 Cov. ‘There was a kinsman also … whose name was Boos, which was an honest man’; and, for ‘becoming,’ Is 52:1 Cov. ‘Put on thine honest rayment, O Jerusalem, thou citle of the holy one.’
‘Honesty’ in 1 Ti 2:2, its only occurrence, means ‘seemliness’ (RV ‘gravity’).
HONEY.—The appreciation of honey by the Hebrews from the earliest times, and its abundance in Canaan, are evident from the oft-recurring description of that country as a ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ (Ex 3:8, 17 onwards). In the absence of any mention of bee-keeping in OT, it is almost certain that this proverbial expression has reference to the honey of the wild bee (see Bee). The latter had its nest in the clefts of rocks, hence the ‘honey out of the rock’ of Dt 32:13, in hollow tree-trunks (1 S 14:26, but the Heb. text is here in disorder), and even, on occasion, in the skeleton of an animal (Jg 14:8ff.). In later times, as is evident from the Mishna, bee-keeping was widely practised by the Jews. The hives were of straw or wicker-work. Before removing the combs the bee-keepers stupefied the bees with the fumes of charcoal and cow-dung, burnt in front of the hives.
In Bible times honey was not only relished by itself (cf. Sir 11:3 ‘the bee is little, but her fruit is the chief of sweet things’), and as an accompaniment to other food (Mt 3:4, Mk 1:6 ‘locusts and wild honey,’ Lk 24:42, AV with fish), but was also largely used in the making of ‘bakemeats’ and all sorts of sweet cakes ( Ex 16:31), sugar being then, of course, unknown. Although it formed part of the firstfruits presented at the sanctuary, honey was excluded from the altar, owing to its liability to fermentation.
Honey for domestic use was kept in earthen jars (1 K 14:3 EV ‘cruse’), in which, doubtless, it was also put for transport (Gn 43:11) and export (Ezk 27:17). Many scholars, however, would identify the ‘honey’ of the two passages last cited with the grape syrup (the Arab. dibs, equivalent of the Heb. debash, ‘honey’) of ‘Honey’ in EBi col. 2105). Indisputable evidence of the manufacture of dibs in early times, however, is still lacking.
In addition to the proverbial expression of fertility above quoted, honey, in virtue of its sweetness, is frequently employed in simile and metaphor in Heb. literature; see Ps 19:10, 119:103, Pr 16:24, 24:13f., Ca 4:11, 5:1, Sir 24:20, 49:1 etc.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HOODS.—Only Is 3:23 AV, for which RV has rightly ‘turbans.’ See Dress, §
5.
HOOK.—1. vav, a book or ring with a spike driven into wood (Ex 26:32 etc.). 2. Is 19:8, Job 41:1, Am 4:2, Mt 17:27. The hook used in fishing was of course attached to a line, but whether the latter was simply held in the hand or was attached to a rod cannot be decided.
HOOPOE (Lv 11:19, Dt 14:18 RV; AV ‘lapwing’).—The hoopoe (Upupa
epops) is a common spring visitor in Palestine, where its striking plumage, its tall crest and odd movements, make it conspicuous. Various folklore tales exist in the Talmud and among the fellahīn regarding it. It was an ‘unclean’ bird (Lv 11:19) , possibly because of its habit of haunting dunghills, but it is eaten to-day by the fellahīn.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HOPE.—1. Hope and faith (the soul’s forward and upward look towards God) are imperfectly differentiated in the OT, as with men who ‘greeted the promises from afar’ (He 11:13–16); hope has there the greater vogue.
Amongst the several Heb. words thus rendered, (1) signifying restful hope
(leaning on J″, &c.), oftener appears as ‘trust’ and sometimes as ‘confidence’— ‘hope’ in Job 6:20, Ps 16:9, Pr 14:32, Ec 9:4, Jer 17:7. (2) A subjective synonym (radically, the loins) is variously translated ‘hope,’ ‘confidence,’ and ‘folly’ ( cf.
AV and RV in Job 8:14, 31:24; also Job 4:6, Ps 49:13, 78:7, 85:8, Pr 3:26, Ec 7:25). (3) RV corrects the ‘hope’ (AV) of Jer 17:17, Jl 3:16, into ‘refuge.’ (4) A synonym hardly distinguishable from (5) and (6), and rendered ‘hope’ or ‘wait upon,’ occurs 8 times (Ps 104:27, 146:5 etc.). The two most distinctive OT words for hope are frequently rendered ‘wait (for or upon).’ Of these (5) bears a relatively passive significance (e.g. in Job 6:11, 14:14, Ps 33:18–22, 42:5, La 3:24). (6) The term oftenest recurring, denoting practical, even strenuous, anticipation ( rendered ‘expectation’ in Ps 9:18, 62:5), has a root-meaning not far removed from that of the Heb. verb for ‘believe’; Gn 49:18, Ru 1:12, Job 14:7, Ps 25:5, 21, Ezk 37:11 , Hos 2:16 afford good examples.
It is to the OT rather than the NT that one must look for definite representations of the earthly hopes belonging to God’s Kingdom, the social regeneration and national well-being that come in its train (see, e.g., Is 9:6f., 11:1–9, 55, 60 f., Pss 72, 96–98, etc.); broadly interpreted, these promises are of permanent validity ( see Mt 6:10, 33, 13:33, 1 Ti 4:8 etc.). Hope plays an increasing part in the later OT books; it advances in distinctness, grandeur, and spirituality with the course of revelation. The Holy One of Israel made Himself ‘the God of hope’ for mankind (Ro 15:13; cf. Jer 14:8 and 17:13 with Is 42:4, 51:4ff., 60). When the national hopes foundered, OT faith anchored itself to two objects: (a) the Messianic Kingdom (see Kingdom of God); and (b), esp. in the latest times, the resurrection of the dead (Is 25:8, 26:19, Dn 12:2; probably Job 19:25ff., Ps 16:8–11, 17:15)— the latter conceived as necessary to the former, since otherwise those who had suffered most for God’s Kingdom would miss it (cf. He 11:35, 1 Th 4:15ff.). The OT heritage is developed in extravagant forms by Jewish Apocalyptic literature, which was the product of a powerful ferment in the Judaism of New Test, times. Philo Judæus, who represents philosophic Judaism at the farthest remove from popular Messianic enthusiasm, nevertheless makes hope (followed by repentance and righteousness) the leader in his triad of the elementary religious virtues (cf. 1 Co 13:13), while faith leads the second and highest triad.
2. To both factors of ‘the hope of Israel,’ separately or together, St. Paul appealed in addressing his compatriots (Ac 13:32, 23:6ff., 26:6ff., 22ff., 28:20). It was ‘a lamp shining in a dark place’ (2 P 1:19): hope at the Christian era was flickering low in the Gentile world (see Eph 2:12, 1 Th 4:13, 1 Co 15:32ff.—amply confirmed by classical literature). ‘By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ humanity was ‘begotten again unto a living hope’ (1 P 1:3; cf. Ac 2:22–36, 1 Co 15:12–26, Rev 1:17f.): the Israelite hope was verified, and the Christian hope founded, by the return of Jesus from the grave. The Greek word for ‘hope’ (elpis, noun; elpizō, verb) primarily meant expectation of good or evil—commonly, in effect, the former; but ‘in later Greek, at the time when hope made its presence so powerfully felt in the Christian sphere, elpis elsewhere came to be increasingly used with the sense of anxiety or fear, of which there is not a single example in the LXX or NT’ (Cremer); ‘evil hopes’ in the Gr. of Is 28:11 is ironical, similarly in Wis 13:10. The RV rightly substitutes ‘hope’ for ‘trust’ in the 18 places where AV rendered elpizō by the latter; for the NT clearly differentiates ‘faith’ and ‘hope,’ referring the latter to the future good of Christ’s Kingdom longingly expected, while the former is directed to God’s past deeds of salvation and His present grace in Christ. ‘Hope’ is used by metonymy for the matter of hope, the thing hoped for, in Gal 5:5, Col 1:5, Tit 2:13, He 6:18. It is sometimes replaced by ‘patience’ ( or ‘endurance’), its expression in outward bearing (cf. 1 Th 1:3 and 2 Th 1:3f.); and
(as in the OT) the verbs ‘hope’ and ‘wait’ or ‘look for’ or ‘expect’ are interchangeable (see Ro 8:19–25, 1 Co 1:7, Gal 5:5, He 10:13). St. Paul uses a graphic and intense synonym for hope. lit. ‘watching with outstretched head,’ in Ro 8:19, Ph 1:20.
elpis appears first with its full Christian meaning in the NT Epp.; for it dates
from our Lord’s resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ro 15:13). Its object is, in general, ‘the glory of God’ (Ro 5:2, 1 Th 2:12), i.e. the glorious manifestation of His completed redemption and the ‘coming’ of His ‘kingdom in power,’ which is to be realized, particularly, in the acknowledged lordship of Jesus (1 Co 15:24– 28, Ph 2:9ff., Rev 17:14 etc.), bringing about the glorification of His saints, shared by material nature (Ro 8:17, 25, 2 Th 1:10f., 1 Co 15:35ff.). This will begin with the resurrection of the dead (1 Th 4:16, 1 Co 15:12–23, Jn 5:28f.) and the transformation of the earthly body (1 Co 15:50ff., 2 Co 5:1ff., Ph 3:21), ushering in for ‘those who are Christ’s’ the state of ‘incorruption’ which constitutes their ‘eternal life’ enjoyed in the vision of God and the full communion of the Lord Jesus (Lk 20:35f., 1 Co 15:54ff., Mt 5:8, Jn 14:2f., 17:24, 1 Jn 3:2, Rev 7:14–17 etc.). Its goal is in heaven; and all the proximate and earthly aims of Christianity, whether in the way of personal attainment or of social betterment, are steps in the progress towards the final ‘deliverance from the bondage of corruption’ and ‘the revealing of the sons of God’—the great day of the Lord. Its ground lies in the ‘promise(s) of God’ (Tit 1:2, He 6:13–18, 2 P 3:13, 1 Jn 2:25), esp. the definite promise of the triumphant return of Jesus ensuring the consummation of the Messianic Kingdom (Mt 24:30f., Ac 1:11, 3:18–21, 1 Co 15:24–28, Rev 11:15–18 etc.); and its guarantee is twofold, being given objectively in the resurrection and ascension of our Lord (Ac 17:31, Ro 1:4, Eph 1:18–23, Col 1:18, He 6:20, 1 P 1:21 etc.), and subjectively in ‘the earnest of the Spirit within’ Christian ‘hearts’ (2 Co 1:20ff., Ro 8:16f., Eph 1:13f.). Its subjects are ‘the men of faith’ (Ro 5:1–5, 15:13 etc.): it is ‘the hope of our calling’ (Eph 4:4, 1 Th 2:12, Rev 19:9), ‘the hope of the gospel’ (Col 1:23)—that which the gospel conveys, and ‘the hope of righteousness’ (Gal 5:5)—that which the righteousness of faith entertains; it belongs only to the Christianly pure, and is purifying in effect (1 Jn 3:2f.; cf. Ps 24:3–6, Mt 5:8, Rev 22:14f.). Finally, it is a collective hope, the heritage of ‘the body of Christ,’ dear to Christian brethren because of their affection for each other (1 Th 4:13–18, 2 Th 2:1, Eph 5:27, Rev 19:8f., 21:1–7 etc.); and is cherished esp. by ministers of Christ for those in their charge (2 Co 1:7–10, 1 Th 2:19f., Col 1:28 , 3:4, Ph 2:16 etc.), as it animated the Chief Shepherd (Jn 10:27ff., 12:26, 14:2 ff., 17:2 etc.). ‘In Christ Jesus’ hope is bound up as intimately with love as with faith; these are the triad of essential graces (1 Co 13:13, 1 Th 1:3, 2 Th 1:3f., Eph 4:1–4 , He 10:22 ff. ).
The whole future of the Christian life, for man and society, is lodged with
‘Christ Jesus our hope’ (1 Ti 1:1, Col 1:27); NT expectation focussed itself on His Parousia—‘the blessed hope’ (Tit 2:13). Maranatha (‘our Lord cometh’ was a watchword of the Pauline Churches (1 Co 16:22; cf. 1:7f.). ‘The hope laid up for’ them ‘in the heavens’ formed the treasure of the first believers (Col 1:5, 3:1–4 etc.); to ‘wait for’ the risen Jesus, coming as God’s son ‘from heaven’ (1 Th 1:9f.) , was half their religion. ‘By this hope’ were they ‘saved,’ being enabled in its strength to bear joyfully the ills of life and the universal contempt and persecution of the world around them, which stimulated instead of quenching their courage ( Ro 5:2–5, 8:18–25, 2 Co 4:13, 5:8, Ph 1:20f., He 10:32–36, Rev 7:13–17). According to the fine figure of He 6:18ff., hope was their ‘anchor of the soul,’ grappled to the throne of the living, glorified Jesus ‘within the veil.’
G. G. Findlay.
HOPHNI AND PHINEHAS.—The two sons of Eli; they were priests in the
sanctuary at Shiloh, where, in spite of the presence of their father, they carried on their evil practices. In consequence of their deeds a curse is twice pronounced upon the house of Eli, first by a ‘man of God’ (1 S 2:27) who is not named, and again by the mouth of Samuel (ch. 3). The curse was accomplished when Hophni and Phinehas were slain at the battle of Aphek, and the ark of God was lost—an incident which was the cause of the death of Eli (ch. 4). The malpractices of these two consisted in their claiming and appropriating more than their due of the sacrifices (2:13–17), and in their immoral actions in the Tabernacle (v. 22; cf. Am 2:7, 8).
W. O. E. Oesterley
HOPHRA.—Jer 44:30; the Egyptian Wahebrē, Apries of Herodotus, fourth king of the 26th Dyn. (c. b.c. 588–569 and grandson of Necho. He, or possibly his predecessor Psammetichus ii., is also referred to as Pharaoh in Jer 37:8, 7 , 11, Ezk 29:3 etc. Little is certainly known of his reign. Hophra must have been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar in Syria in attempting to resist the progress of the Babylonian army, and he received the fugitives from Palestine after the destruction of Jerusalem in b.c. 586. There is no evidence that Nebuchadnezzar plundered Egypt, as was anticipated by Ezekiel, though he seems to have attacked Hophra’s successor Amasis in b.c. 568 with some success, and may have overrun some part of Lower Egypt. The Syrian and other mercenary soldiers stationed at Elephantine revolted in the reign of Hophra, but were brought again to submission. Another mutiny of the Egyptian soldiery, recorded by Herodotus, resulted in Amasis being put upon the throne as champion of the natives. Hophra relied on the Greek mercenaries, and maintained himself, perhaps in a forced co-regency, in Lower Egypt until the third year of Amasis, when he was defeated and slain.
F. Ll. Griffith.
HOR.—1. A mountain ‘in the edge of the land of Edom’ (Nu 33:37), where
Aaron died. Constant tradition, at least since Josephus, sees Mount Hor in Jebel Harūn, ‘the Mountain of Aaron,’ above Petra. This is regarded by the Arabs as the mountain sacred to the great high priest, and his tomb is shown and reverenced under a small dome on its summit. Some modern writers, especially H. C.
Trumbull, have doubted the tradition and endeavoured to fix other sites, such as Jebel Madāra, N. W. of ‘Ain Kadis. Jebel Harūn rises 4780 ft. above the sea-level.
Its western side is an unscalable precipice; it is ascended from the pass leading into Petra. A very wide view over the Arabian desert, down to the Red Sea and up to the Ghōr, is commanded from the summit. 2. A mountain mentioned in Nu 34:7, 8 , as in the northern boundary of the Promised Land. In all probability this is meant for Hermon.
R. A. S. Macalister.
HORAM.—A king of Gezer defeated and slain by Joshua (Jos 10:33).
HOREB.—See Sinai.
HOREM.—A city of Naphtali in the mountains (Jos 19:38); prob. the modern Hūrah west of Kedeshnaphtali.
HORESH.—The word hōresh means ‘wooded height’ in is 17:9, Ezk 31:3, 2 Ch 27:4, and this is probably its meaning in 1 S 23:15 (cf. vv. 16, 18), although some would make Horesh a proper name, as in RVm.
HOR-HAGGIDGAD.—A station in the journeyings of the Israelites ( Nu 33:32, 33). The name suggests the land of the Horites, or its neighbourhood.
HORI.—1. A son of Seir (Gn 36:22 = 1 Ch 1:39). 2. The father of Shaphat the Simeonite spy (Nu 13:5).
HORITES.—The pre-Edomitic inhabitants of Seir or Edom according to Gn
14:6 (a late passage) and Dt 2:12, 22 (D 2). Apparently they commingled with the Edomite invaders, for Gn 36:20, 21, 29 (P 3) counts them among the descendants of Esau. The name is usually taken to mean ‘cave-dwellers,’ and this is probably correct. There are many tombs in the rocks at Petra (cf. Robinson, BRP2 ii. 129 , 134), and some of these, like some at Beit Jibrin and some recently discovered at Gezer (cf. PEFSt, 1902, pp. 345 ff., and 1903, pp. 9–12) may have been used as dwellings originally. Sayce (HCM 203 ff.) derives the name from a root meaning ‘white’ as contrasted with the ‘red’-skinned Edomites, while Hommei (AHT 261 ff.) takes it as a form of Garu (or Kharu) of one of the Amarna tablets. Kharu was, however, in Egyptian a name for all the inhabitants of Syria (cf. W. M. Müller,
Asien und Europa, 148 ff.), and can hardly be connected with Horites. Driver
(Deut. p. 38) favours the explanation as equivalent to ‘cave-dwellers’ or ‘troglodytes.’
George A. Barton.
HORMAH (‘devoted’ or ‘accursed’) was a city, apparently not far from Kadesh, where the Israelites were overthrown, when, after the death of the ten spies, they insisted on going forward (Nu 14:45, Dt 1:44). At a later time it was taken and destroyed by Israel (Nu 21:3, Jos 12:19), this feat being attributed in Jg 1:17 to Judah and Simeon. There we learn that the former name was Zephath.
Possibly the memory of the previous disaster here led to its being called
‘Accursed.’ It was one of ‘the uttermost cities of Judah, towards the borders of Edom in the south,’ and is named between Chesll and Ziklag (Jos 15:30), also between Bethul (or Bethuel) and Ziklag (Jos 19:4, 1 Ch 4:30), in the territory occupied by Simeon. It was one of the towns to which David sent a share of the booty taken from the Amalekites who had raided Ziklag in his absence (1 S 30:30). There is no need to assume with Guthe (Bibelwörterbuch, s.v.) that two cities are so named. Probably, as in so many other cases, the old name persisted, and may be represented by the modern es-Sebaitā, 23 miles north of ‘Ain Kadīs, and 26 miles south of Beersheba. The probability is increased if Ziklag is correctly identified with ‘Aslūj, 14 miles north of es-Sebaitā. On the other hand, Naqb es-Safā agrees better with the position of Arad; but it seems too far from Kadesh, being more than 40 miles to the north-east (Robinson, BRP9 ii. 181).
W. Ewing.
HORN (Heb. qeren, Gr. keras).—Sometimes horns were wrought into vessels in which oil was stored (1 K 1:39) or carried (1 S 16:1). Probably with some dainty ornamentation, they were used to hold eye-paint (Job 42:14, Keren-happuch). Of rams’ horns a kind of trumpet was made Jos 6:4); see Music, 4 (2) (e). ‘Horns’ in poetry symbolized strength (Dt 33:17 etc.). ‘Horn’ in Ps 18:2 = 2 S 22:3 stands for offensive weapons, as ‘shield’ for defensive (Perowne). To ‘exalt one’s born,’ or ‘cause it to bad’ (grow), is to strengthen and prosper him (1 S 2:1, Ezk 29:21 etc.).
For one to ‘lift his horn’ is to be arrogant (Ps 75:4, 5). To crush or weaken one is to ‘break or cut off his born’ (Jer 48:25, La 2:3). In prophetic symbolism borns stand for kings and military powers (Dn 7:8, 8:21 etc.). The altar borns (Ex 27:2), to which fugitives seeking asylum clung (1 K 1:50 etc.), were projections at the four corners, and apparently peculiarly sacred (Ex 30:10 etc.); but their significance and use are now unknown.
W. Ewing.
HORNED SNAKE.—See Serpent.
HORNET (Ex 23:28, Dt 7:20, Jos 24:12).—In all three references the hornet is mentioned as an instrument of the Lord to drive out the Canaanites. By most interpreters a literal interpretation is accepted, but a metaphorical use of the word is contended for by some. Sayce has suggested that the reference may be to the armies of Rameses iii., as the standard-bearers wore two devices like flies. The most plentiful hornet in Palestine is the Vespa orientalis. Hornets attack only when interfered with.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HORONAIM (perh. ‘the two bollows’).—A city of Moab, whose site has not been recovered with certainty. It is mentioned in Is 15:5, Jer 48:3, 5, 34, and also on the Moabite Stone (11. 31, 32). It may have lain to the south of the Arnon, in the neighbourhood of the Wady ed-Derā‘a.
HORONITE (Neh 2:10, 19, 13:28).—A title given to Sanballat (wh. see), the opponent of Nehemiah. The name probably denotes an inhabitant of Beth-boron (wh. see).
HORSE.—The Israelites must have been acquainted with horses in Egypt ( Gn 47:17), and it is evident, too, from the Tell el-Amarna correspondence that horses were familiar animals in Palestine at an early period; but it would appear that the children of Israel were slow in adopting them. Throughout the OT up to the Exile they appear only as war-horses; the ass, the mule, and the camel were the beasts for riding and burden-bearing. Even for warlike purposes horses were only slowly adopted, the mountainous regions held by the Israelites being unsuitable for chariot warfare. David commenced acquiring chariots (2 S 8:4), and Solomon greatly added to their numbers, obtaining horses for them from Musri [not Mizraim, ‘Egypt’] in N. Syria and Kue, in Cilicia (1 K 10:28, 2 Ch 1:16 [amending the text]). Horses were obtained also from Egypt (Is 31:1, 3, Ezk 17:15). Some of the references may be to hired horsemen. The kings of Israel were warned against multiplying horses (Dt 17:16). Trust in horses is put in antithesis to trust in the Lord (Is 30:16, Ps 20:7, 33:17). Before the reforms of Josiah, horses sacred to the sun were kept in the Temple (2 K 23:11; cf. 11:16). The appearance of the warhorse seems to have made a deep impression (Job 39:19–25, Jer 47:3, Nah 3:2 etc.). After the Exile horses were much more common: the returning Jews brought 736 horses with them (Neh 7:68). Horses were fed on barley and tibn ( chopped straw) in Solomon’s time as in Palestine to-day (1 K 4:28). Although the breeding of horses has become so intimately associated with our ideas of the Arabs, it would seem that during the whole OT period horses were unknown, or at least scarce, in Arabia. The equipment of horses is mentioned in the Bible—the bit and bridle ( Ps 32:9, Pr 26:3), bells of the horses (Zec 14:20), and ‘precious clothes for chariots’ (Ezk 27:20). In OT times they were apparently unshod (Is 5:28).
E. W. G. Masterman. HORSE-GATE.—See Jerusalem, p. 439b.
HORSE-LEECH (‘aluqah, cf. Arab. ‘alaqeh).—The horse-leech (Hœmopis sanguisuga) and the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) are very common in Palestine and are the cause of much trouble, even sickness and death, to man and beast. They abound in many springs, streams, and pools, and lodge themselves, while still small, in the mouths of those drinking. Thence they not infrequently find their way to the pharynx, and even larynx, where they live and grow for many months. They cause frequent hæmorrhages, and, if not removed, lead to progressive anæmia and death. Their voracious appetite for blood, possibly referred to in Pr 30:15, is well illustrated by their habits as internal parasites. It is probable, however, that the reference here is not to the leech of common life, but to the mythological vampire, the ghul of the Arabs.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HOSAH (‘refuge’).—1. A Levitical doorkeeper of the Temple (1 Ch 16:38 , 26:10, 11, 16). 2. A city of Asher, apparently south of Tyre (Jos 19:29). The site is doubtful.
HOSANNA (=‘O save’!).—An acclamation used by the people on Palm Sunday in greeting Jesus on His last entry into Jerusalem, and afterwards by the children in the Temple (Mt 21:9, 15). It occurs six times in the Gospels (all in the connexion above noted).
The expression, which has preserved its Hebrew form (like ‘Amen’ and
‘Hallelujah’), was originally (in Hebrew) a cry addressed to God ‘Save now’! used as an invocation of blessing. When the word passed over (transliterated into Greek) into the early Church it was misunderstood as a shout of homage or greeting =
‘Hail’ or ‘Glory to.’
The simplest form of the Palm Sunday greeting occurs in Mk 11:9 and Jn 12:13 ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,’ which really was the cry of the people. The additions that occur in the other passages (‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ Mt 21:9, 15, and ‘Hosanna in the highest,’ Mt 21:9, Mk 11:10) seem really to be later amplifications due to misunderstanding of the real meaning of ‘Hosanna.’ The Hosanna cry (cf. Ps 118:25f.) and the palm branches naturally suggest the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people used to raise the cry of ‘Hosanna,’ while marching in procession and waving branches of palm, myrtle, and willow. The great occasion for this was especially the 7th day of the Feast, when the Hosanna processions were most frequent. Hence this day was early designated ‘Day of Hosha‘na’ [Hosanna], and the lulab branches then used also received the same name. It was the greatest of popular holidays, probably the lineal descendant of an old Canaanitish festival, and still retains its joyous character in the Jewish Festival calendar (Hosha‘na Rabba).
It is not necessary, however, to suppose, with Wünsche (Erläuterungen der
Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrash, p. 241), that a confusion has arisen in the Gospel accounts of Palm Sunday between Tabernacles and Passover. Such processions were not peculiar to Tabernacles. They might be extemporized for other occasions of a joyous character (cf. 1 Mac 13:51, 2 Mac 10:7), and this was the case in the scene described in the Gospels.
In its transliterated form the word ‘Hosanna’ passed over into early liturgical (esp. doxological) use (cf. e.g. Didache 10:6 ‘Hosanna to the God of David’), as an interjection of praise and joy, and was developed on these lines. The early misunderstanding of its real meaning was perpetuated. But the history of this development lies outside the range of purely Biblical archaeology.
G. H. Box.
HOSEA.—The name of the prophet Hosea, though distinguished by the English translators, is identical with that of the last king of Israel and with the original name of Joshua; in these cases it appears in the EV as Hoshea. Hosea, the son of Beeri, is the only prophet, among those whose writings have survived, who was himself a native of the Northern Kingdom. The main subject of the prophecy of Amos is the Northern Kingdom, but Amos himself was a native of the South; so also were Isaiah and Micah, and these two prophets, though they included the Northern Kingdom in their denunciations, devoted themselves mainly to Judah.
Hosea’s prophetic career extended from shortly before the fall of the house of Jerohoam ii. (c. b.c. 746) to shortly before the outbreak of the Syro-Ephraimitish war in b.c. 735—a period of rapidly advancing decay following on the success and prosperity of the reign of Jeroboam ii. He began to prophesy within some 10 or 15 years of the prophetic activity of Amos at Bethel, and continued to do so till some years after Isaiah had made his voice heard and his influence felt in the Southern Kingdom. Influenced himself probably by Amos, he seems to have exercised some influence over Isaiah; but these conclusions must rest on a comparison of the writings of the three prophets. Our direct knowledge of Hosea is derived entirely from the book which bears his name; be is mentioned nowhere else in the OT.
If the account given in the 1st and 3rd chapters of Hosea were allegory, as many ancient and some modern interpreters have held, our knowledge of Hosea would be slight indeed. But since these chapters are clearly not allegorical, there are few prophets whose spiritual experience is better known to us. In favour of an allegorical interpretation the clearly symbolical character of the names of Hosea’s children has been urged; but the names of Isaiah’s children—Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz—are also symbolical (cf. Is 8:18). Moreover, if the narrative were allegorical, there would be just as much reason for the names of Hosea’s wife and her father as for the names of the children being symbolical; on the other hand, in real life it was within the power of the prophet to give symbolical names to the children, but not to his wife or her father. The names of Hosea’s wife, Gomer, and her father, Diblaim are not symbolical. Further, the reference to the weaning of Lo-ruhamah in 1:8 is purposeless in allegory, but natural enough in real life, since it serves to fix the interval between the birth of the two children.
The command in 1:2 has seemed to some, and may well seem, if prophetic methods of expression are forgotten, impossible except in allegory. It is as well, therefore, to approach the important narrative of Hosea with a recollection of such a method of describing experience as is illustrated by Jer 18:1–4. This describes a perfectly familiar scene. The incident, translated out of prophetic language, is as follows. On an impulse Jeremiah one day went down to watch, as he must often have watched before, a potter at his work; but on this particular day the potter’s work taught him a new lesson. Then he recognized (1) that the impulse that had led him that day was from Jahweh, and (2) that the new suggestion of the potter’s wheel was a word from Jahweh. So again, Jer 32:6f. describes what we should term a presentiment; after it was realized, it was recognized to have been a word from Jahweh (Jer 32:8). Interpreted in the light of these illustrations of prophetic methods of speech, the narrative of Hosea 1 gives us an account of the experience of Hosea, as follows. Driven by true love in which, probably enough, Hosea at the time felt the approval, not to say the direct impulse of Jahweh, Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. After marriage she proved unfaithful, and Hosea heard that the woman whom he had been led by Jahweh to marry had had within her all along the tendency to unfaithfulness. She was not at the time of marriage an actual harlot, but, had Hosea only fully understood, he would have known when he married her, as these years afterwards he has come to know, that when Jahweh said, ‘Go, marry Gomer,’ He was really saying ‘Go, marry a woman who will bestow her love on others.’ His new, sad knowledge does not make him feel less but more that his marriage had been ordered of God. Not only through the love of youth, but even more through the conflict and the treachery and the ill-return which his love has received, Jahweh is speaking. Had Hosea spoken just like Jeremiah, he might have continued: ‘Then I discovered that my wife had played the harlot, and that my children were not mine. Then I knew that this was the word of Jahweh, and Jahweh said unto me: Even as the bride of thy youth has played the harlot, even so has My bride, Israel, played the harlot: even as thy children are children of harlotry, even so are the children of Israel children of harlotry, sons of the Baals whom they worship.’
Apparently Hosea reached the conclusion that none of the children were his; he calls them without exception ‘children of harlotry’ (1:2). But the name Jezreel (1:4) certainly does not suggest that at the birth of his firstborn he was already aware of his wife’s unfaithfulness, the name of the second, Lo-ruhamah ( ‘Not pitied,’ 1:6), does not prove it, and even that of the third child, Lo-ammi (‘Not my kinsman,’ 1:9), may merely carry further the judgment on the nation expressed unquestionably in the first and probably in the second. In any case we may somewhat safely infer that Hosea became a prophet before he had learned his wife’s unfaithfulness, and that in his earnest preaching he, like Amos, denounced inhumanity as offensive to God; for this is the purpose of the name Jezreel; the house of Jehu, established by means of bloodshed and inhumanity (1:4), is about to be punished. ‘Kindness not sacrifice’ (6:6) must have been the ideal of religion which from the first Hosea held up before his people.
It has generally been inferred that Hosea’s wife subsequently left him (or that he put her away), but that at last in his love for her, which could not be quenched, he rescued her from the life of shame into which she had sunk (ch 3). And this perhaps remains most probable, though Marti has lately argued with much ability (1) that ch. 3 does not refer to Gomer, (2) that, unlike ch. 1, ch. 3 is allegorical, and (3) that ch. 3 formed no part of the original Book of Hosea. Be this as it may, it is clear that although the circumstances of Hosea’s married life were not the cause of his becoming a prophet, they do explain certain peculiar characteristics of his message and personality: his insistence on the love of God for Israel, and on Israel’s sin as consisting in the want of love and of loyalty towards God; and the greater emotional element that marks him as compared with Amos. At the same time, it is important not to exaggerate the difference between Amos and Hosea, of to lose sight of the fact that Hosea not less than Amos or Isaiah or Micah insisted on the worthlessness of religion or of devotion to Jahweh which was not ethical (Jezreel, 1:4; 6:6). In considering the greater sympathy of Hosea with the people whom he has to condemn, it must he remembered that he was of them, whereas Amos, a native of the South, was not.
G. B. Gray.
HOSEA, BOOK OF.—The Book of Hosea formed the first section of a collection of prophetic writings which was formed after the Exile, probably towards the close of the 3rd century b.c., and entitled ‘The Twelve Prophets’ ( see Micah [Book of]). The greater part of the Book of Hosea clearly consists of the writings of Hosea, the son of Beeri, who prophesied in the 8th cent. b.c. ( see preced. art.), but it also contains the annotations or additions of editors who lived between the 8th and the 3rd centuries. It is not always possible to determine with certainty these editorial portions of the book.
Though we have no positive evidence to this effect, there is no reason to doubt that Hosea himself committed to writing the prophetic poems by which he gave expression to his message and of which the greater part of the Book of Hosea consists (chs. 2:4–14), and that he prefixed to these the prose narrative of his life (chs. 1, 3, see Hosea) with which the hook now opens. It is possible, of course, that Hosea first circulated in writing single poems or a collection of two or three; but the complete collection, though scarcely made later than 735, since the prophecies make no allusion to the Syro-Ephraimitish war which broke out in that year, cannot be much earlier than 735, since the prophecies make allusions to the circumstances of the period that followed the death, in about b.c. 746, of Jerohoam ii. ( anarchy, 7:3–7, 8:4; cf. 2 K 15:8–26; factions favouring appeal to Egypt and Assyria respectively, 5:13, 7:11, 8:9, 12:1), and probably in particular to the payment of tribute by Menahem to Tiglath-pileser [= Pul, 2 K 15:19], which took place in b.c. 738 (5:13, 10:5, 6). Again, the opening narrative (ch. 1), though it describes Hosea’s life and teaching before the death of Jeroboam ii. (1:4, see Hosea), was not written until some years later, for it also records the birth of Lo-ammi (1:9), which was separated by hardly less and possibly more than 5 years from the date of Hosea’s marriage.
In its earliest form, then, the Book of Hosea was published by the prophet about the year 736 in the Northern Kingdom. Now, in common with all literature of the Northern Kingdom, Hosea owes its preservation to the care of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. It is tolerably certain that the Jews who preserved the book adapted it for Jewish use; in other words, that the Book of Hosea as we have it is a
Jewish edition of the writings of an Israelite prophet. The hand of a Jewish editor
(and in this case a somewhat late one) is perhaps clearest in the title (1:1), for Hosea, a citizen of the Northern Kingdom and addressing himself to the North, would scarcely date his prophecy by kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, nor would a contemporary be likely to equate the days of Uzziah and his successors with the days of Jeroboam, since Uzziah himself outlived Jeroboam. With more or less reason, additions to or modifications of Hosea’s work by Jewish editors have been suspected in 1:7, 1:10–2:1, 3:5 (‘and David their king’) 4:15a, 5:5 ( last clause) 6:11, 8:14, 10:11, 11:12b. In several other cases (5:10, 12, 13, 14, 6:4 , 12:2) it is possible that the editor has pointed the original prophecies at his own people of the South by substituting ‘Judah’ where Hosea had written ‘Israel’; thus, although at present Jacob-Judah are mentioned in 12:2, the terms ‘Jacob’ and ‘Israel,’ synonyms for the people of the Northern Kingdom, were certainly in the mind of the writer of 12:2, 3, for in 12:3 he puns on these names: ‘In the womb he
Jacobed his brother, and in his manhood Israeled with God.’
Another whole group of passages has been suspected of consisting of additions to Hosea’s prophecies. These are the passages of promise (1:10–2:1, 2:14–23, 3:1– 5 [regarded as an allegory of restoration] 5:15, 6:3, 11:10, 11, 14). There is little doubt that such passages were added to ancient prophecies, but it is not yet by any means generally admitted that the early prophets made no promises of a brighter future beyond judgment.
Apart from the intentional modifications of the original words of Hosea by later editors, the text has suffered very seriously from accidents of transmission. To some extent the Greek version allows us to see an earlier Hebrew text than that perpetuated by the Jews from which the EV is made. The English reader will find the translation from a critically emended text by Dr. G. A. Smith (Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i.) of great assistance. The best English commentary is that by W. R. Harper in the International Critical Commentary.
G. B. Gray.
HOSEN.—The plural of ‘hose’ (cf. ‘ox,’ ‘oxen’), only Dn 3:21 AV, and now obsolete in the sense, here intended, of breeches or trousers. The article of dress denoted by the original is uncertain. According to an early tradition (LXX tiara) , some form of headdress is intended (cf. RVm ‘turbans’), but modern opinion favours ‘coats’ or ‘tunics’ as in RV.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HOSHAIAH (‘Jah has saved’).—1. A man who led half the princes of Judah in the procession at the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh 12:32). 2. The father of Jezaniah (Jer 42:1), or Azariah (43:2).
HOSHAMA.—A descendant of David (1 Ch 3:18)
HOSHEA.—1. See Joshua. 2. An Ephraimite (1 Ch 27:20). 3. One of those who sealed the covenant (Neh 10:23). 4. The last king of Israel. The chronological data of our text are not entirely accordant (2 K 15:30, 17:1), but we know that he came to the throne not far from b.c. 732. Taking into view the Assyrian annals along with the Biblical accounts, we gather that there were two parties in Samaria, one advocating submission to Assyria, the other hoping for independence. Pekah was placed on the throne by the latter; Hoshea was the candidate of the Assyrians, and was perhaps actively supported by them in his revolt against Pekah, whom he supplanted. This was when Tiglath-pileser punished Pekah and Rezin for interfering in the affairs of Judah (see Ahaz). At the death of Tiglath-pileser, however, Hoshea was enticed by the Egyptian king or sub-king, and went over to the party which was ready for revolt. It is probable that he had convinced himself that the land could not longer pay the heavy tribute laid upon it. The new king of Assyria (Shalmaneser iv.) moved promptly, captured and imprisoned the king, and laid siege to the capital. It speaks well for the strength of Samaria and for the courage of its people that the place held out for more than two years; but the result can hardly have been doubtful from the first. The surrender was followed by the deportation of a considerable part of the people, and the planting of foreign colonies in the country (2 K 17:6, 24). Sargon, who came to the throne just before the surrender, had no desire to experiment with more vassal kings, and set an Assyrian governor over the wasted province. Thus ended the kingdom of Israel.
H. P. Smith.
HOSPITALITY.—In the life of the East there are no more attractive features than those that centre in the practice of hospitality. The virtue of hospitality ranked high in the ancient Orient, and the laws regulating its observance hold undisputed sway in the desert still. The pleasing picture of the magnanimous sheik, bidding strangers welcome to his tent and to the best he owns (Gn 18), is often repeated to this hour in the Arabian wilderness. It was to Lot’s credit and advantage that he had preserved this virtue amid the corruptions of Sodom (Gn 19:2ff.). To shirk an opportunity for its exercise was shameful (Jg 19:15, 18). A man’s worth was illustrated by his princely hospitality (Job 31:31f.). Jesus sent forth the Twelve ( Mt 10:9f.), and the Seventy (Lk 10:4ff.), relying on the hospitality of the people. Its exercise secured His blessing; woe threatened such as refused it. The Samaritans’ churlish denial of hospitality to Jesus excited the wrath of His disciples (Lk 9:53). The guest had a right to expect certain attentions (Lk 7:44ff.). The practice of hospitality distinguished those on the right from those on the left hand (Mt 25:35 ; cf. 10:40, Jn 13:20). It is commended by precept (Ro 12:13, 20, 1 Ti 3:2 etc.), and also by example (He 13:2).
Hospitality was highly esteemed amongst other ancient peoples. In Egypt its practice was thought to favour the soul in the future life. By kindness to strangers the Greeks secured the approval of Zeus Xenios, their protector. For the Romans hospitality was a sacred obligation.
In its simplest aspect, hospitality is the reception of the wayfarer as an honoured guest, providing shelter and food. In the ancient, as indeed for the most part in the modern, Orient, men journey only under necessity. Travel for purposes of pleasure and education is practically unknown. Save in cities, therefore, and in trading centres along the great highways, there was little call for places of public entertainment. Villages probably always contained what is called the medāfeh— properly madyafah—a chamber reserved for guests, whose entertainment is a charge upon the whole community. From personal experience the present writer knows how solicitous the humblest villagers are for the comfort and well-being of their guests. If the chief man in a village be well off, he greatly adds to his prestige by a liberal display of hospitality.
In the desert, every tent, however poor its owner, offers welcome to the traveller. In the master’s absence the women receive the guests, and according to their means do the honours of the ‘house of hair.’ It is the master’s pride to be known as a generous man; any lack of civility or of kindness to a guest meets severe reprobation. In the guest’s presence he calls neither his tent, nor anything it contains, his own. During his sojourn the visitor is owner. The women bake bread; the master slays a ‘sacrifice,’ usually a lamb, kid, or sheep, which is forthwith dressed, cooked, and served with the bread. The proud son of the wilds has high ideas of his own dignity and honour; but he himself waits upon his guest, seeking to gratify with alacrity his every wish. If his visitors are of superior rank he stands by them (Gn 18:8), and in any case sits down only if they invite him. The safety and comfort of the guests are the first consideration; many place them before even the honour of wife and daughter (Gn 19:8, Jg 19:24; cf. Lane, Mod. Egyp. 297). If a guest arrives after sunset he is entitled only to shelter, as the host might then be unable to prepare a meal creditable to himself. If food is offered, it is of the host’s goodwill (Lk 11:5ff.). The guest, careful of the host’s honour, will indicate that more than he requires has been provided by leaving a portion in the dish.
The open hand, as the token of a liberal heart, wins the respect and esteem of the Arabs. Leadership does not of necessity descend from father to son. Right to the position must be vindicated by wisdom, courage, dignity, and not least by generous hospitality. For the niggard in this regard there is nothing but contempt. It is a coveted distinction to be known as a ‘coffee sheik,’ one who without stint supplies his visitors with the fragrant beverage.
The Arabs are sometimes charged with want of gratitude; justly, as it seems from our point of view. But what seems ingratitude to us may be due simply to the influence of immemorial custom, in a land where the necessities of life are never sold, but held as common good, of which the traveller may of right claim a share. The ‘right of a guest’ may be taken, if not freely offered. The man who refuses covers himself with perpetual shame. The guest enjoys only his right; therefore no thanks mingle with his farewell.
The right, however, is limited. ‘Whoever,’ says the Prophet, ‘believes in God and the day of resurrection must respect his guest; and the time of being kind to him is one day and one night; and the period of entertaining him is three days; and if after that he does it longer, he benefits him more: but it is not right for the guest to stay in the house of his host so long as to incommode him’ (Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 143). After three days, or, some say, three days and four hours, the host may ask if he proposes to honour him by a longer stay. The guest may wish to reach some point under protection of the tribe. If so, he is welcome to stay; only, the host may give him work to do. To remain while refusing to do this is highly dishonourable. But the guest may go to another tent at the expiry of every third day, thus renewing his ‘right,’ and sojourn with the tribe as long as is necessary.
Hospitality involves protection as well as maintenance. ‘It is a principle alike in old and new Arabia that the guest is inviolable’ (W. R. Smith, Kinship2, 48). That this provision applies to enemies as well as to friends shows the magnanimity of the desert law. Every stranger met in the open is assumed to be an enemy: he will owe his safety either to his own prowess or to fear that his tribe will exact vengeance if he is injured. But the stranger who enters the tent is daif Ullah, the guest whom God has sent, to be well entreated for His sake. In an enemy’s country one’s perils are over when he reaches a tent, and touches even a tent peg. A father’s murderer may find sure asylum even in the tent of his victim’s son. When he has eaten of the host’s bread, the two are at once bound as brothers for mutual help and protection. It is said that ‘there is salt between them.’ Not that literal salt is required. This is a term covering milk, and indeed food of any kind. A draught of water taken by stealth, or even against his will, from a man’s dish, serves the purpose. When protection is secured from one, the whole tribe is bound by it ( W. R. Smith, RS2 76).
To understand this we must remember (1) that in Arabia all recognition of mutual rights and duties rests upon kinship. Those outside the kin may be dealt with according to each man’s inclination and ability. (2) Kinship is not exclusively a matter of birth. It may be acquired. When men eat and drink together, they renew their blood from the one source, and to that extent are partakers in the same blood. The stranger eating with a clansman becomes ‘kinsman’ to all the members of the clan, as regards ‘the fundamental rights and duties that turn on the sanctity of kindred blood’ (Wellhausen, Reste Arab. Heid. 119f.; W. R. Smith, RS2 273 n.). This sanctity may be traced to the ancient belief that the clan god shared its life, and when an animal was slain for food took part in the common meal. The clan’s friends were therefore the god’s friends, whom to injure was to outrage the deity. That the slaughter of the victim was a religions act involving the whole kin is borne out (a) by the fact that when an animal is slain all have an undisputed right to come to the feast; (b) by the name dhabīhah, ‘sacrifice,’ still applied to it. The present writer was once entertained in the camp of a rather wild and unkempt tribe. His attendants supped with the crowd. Fearing this might not be agreeable to a European, the chief’s son, who presided in his father’s absence, with innate Arab courtesy, asked him to cup with him in the sheik’s tent. Bringing in a portion of the flesh, the youth repeatedly remarked, as if for the stranger’s re-assurance, edhdhabīhah wāhideh, ‘the slaughtering—sacrifice—is one’; i.e. the tribesmen and he ate from the same victim.
The bond thus formed was temporary, holding good for 36 hours after parting. By frequent renewal, however, it might become permanent. ‘There was a sworn alliance between the Lihyān and the Mostalic: they were wont to eat and drink together’ (RS2 270 f.). A man may declare himself the dakhīl—from dakhala, ‘to enter,’ i.e. to claim protection—of a powerful man, and thus pass under shelter of his name even before his tent is reached. Whoever should injure him then would have to reckon with the man whose name he had invoked. The rights of sanctuary associated with temples, and until recently with certain churches, originated in an appeal to the hospitality of the local deity. The refugee’s safety depended on the respect paid to the god. Joab would have been safe had he not outlawed himself in this regard (1 K 2:31ff.). Jael’s dastard deed could be approved only in the heat of patriotic fanaticism (Jg 4:17, 5:24).
In OT times it can hardly be said that inns in the later sense existed. The ordinary traveller was provided for by the laws of hospitality. The mātōn of Gn 42:27 etc. was probably nothing more than a place where caravans were accustomed to halt and pass the night. A building of some kind may be intended by the ‘lodge of wayfaring men’ in the wilderness (Jer 9:2). For gērūth (Jer 41:17) we should probably read gidrōth, ‘folds’ (cf. Jos. Ant. X. ix. 5). Great changes were wrought by Greek and Roman influence, and there can be no doubt that in NT times, especially in the larger centres of population, inns were numerous and well appointed. The name pandocheion = Arab. funduq, shows that the inn was a foreign importation. Those on the highways would in some respects resemble the khāns of modern times, and the buildings that stood for centuries on the great lines of caravan traffic, before the sea became the highway of commerce. These were places of strength, as well as of entertainment for man and beast. Such was probably the inn of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:34), identified with Khān Hadrūr, on the road to Jericho. The inns would be frequented by men of all nationalities and of all characters. Rabbinical references show that their reputation was not high. It was natural that Christians should, for their own safety, avoid the inn, and practise hospitality among themselves (1 P 4:9 etc.).
In Lk 2:7 ‘inn’ (katatuma) probably means, as it does in Mk 14:14 and Lk 22:11, the guest-chamber in a private house. Such guest-chambers were open freely to Jews visiting Jerusalem at the great feasts (Aboth R. Nathan, cap. 34). It is reasonable to suppose that they would be equally open on an occasion like the registration, requiring the presence of such numbers. If Joseph and Mary, arriving late, found the hoped-for guest-chamber already occupied, they might have no resort but the khān, where, in the animal’s quarters, Jesus was born.
In modern Palestine hotels are found only at important places on the most popular routes of travel.
W. Ewing.
HOST.—See next art. and Army.
HOST OF HEAVEN.—The phrase ‘host (or army) of heaven’ occurs in OT in two apparently different senses—referring (1) to stars, (2) to angels.
1. The ‘host of heaven’ is mentioned as the object of idolatrous worship; it is frequently coupled with ‘sun and moon,’ the stars being obviously meant; where
‘sun and moon’ are not specifically mentioned, the phrase may be used as
including them as well. Dt 4:19 speaks of this worship as a special temptation to Israel; it has been appointed or allotted to all the peoples,’ i.e. the heathen, and is absolutely inconsistent with the worship of J″; the penalty is stoning (17:3). The references to it suggest that it became prominent in Israel in the 7th cent. b.c., when Manasseh introduced it into the Temple (2 K 21:5); its abolition was part of Josiah’s reform (23:4, 5, 12). The mention, in the last verse, of ‘the altars which were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz’ suggests that the worship was, in fact, older than the reign of Manasseh, and had been practised by Ahaz; it was carried on upon the roofs of houses (Jer 19:13, Zeph 1:5), so that 2 K 23:12 may well refer to it. Is 17:8 mentions ‘sun-pillars’ as characteristic of the idolatry of the reign of Ahaz (unless the words are a later addition), and there are possible traces of nature-worship in earlier periods in Am 5:26, and in the names Beth-shemesh, Jericho, which suggest sun- and moon-worship. 2 K 17:16, which speaks of the worship of the host of heaven as prevalent in the Northern Kingdom, is a ‘Deuteronomic’ passage, which can hardly be pressed historically. Whilst, then, there are early traces of nature-worship, the systematized idolatry of ‘the host of heaven ‘belongs to the period of special Assyrian and Babylonian influence; astrology and kindred beliefs were characteristic of the religions of these countries.
The phrase is used in other contexts of the stars as the armies of J″, innumerable, ordered, and obedient (Gn 2:1, Ps 33:6, Is 34:4, 45:12, Jer 33:22). Is 40:26 (‘bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name’) comes very near to a personification. In Dn 8:10 we read of the assault of the ‘little horn’ on the ‘host of heaven’ and their ‘prince.’ This may be only a hyperbolical expression for blasphemous pride, but it strongly suggests the influence of the Babylonian ‘dragon myth,’ In which heaven itself was stormed; cf. Rev 12:4, 13:6 , where the Beast blasphemes God, His tabernacles, and them that dwell in heaven; i.e. the angelic host (so Bousset), at least in the idea underlying the conception. Hence in Dn 8:10 we are probably right in seeing a reference to the stars regarded as animate warriors of J″, their ‘captain’; cf. the poetical passages Jg 5:20 (the stars in their courses fighting against Sisera) and Job 38:7 (the morning stars, coupled with the ‘sons of God,’ singing for joy); in these passages it remains a question how far the personification is merely a poetic figure, it is at least possible that a more literally conceived idea lies behind them. in is 24:21 we read of the ‘host of the height’ (‘high ones on high’), whom J″ shall punish in the Day of Judgment, together with the kings of the earth. The passage, the date of which is very doubtful, is strongly eschatological, and the phrase must refer to supramundane foes of J″, whether stars or angels; again, a reference to the dragon myth is very possible.
2. Passages such as these lead to the consideration of others where ‘host of heaven’=‘angels.’ The chief is 1 K 22:19 (Micaiah’s vision); cf. Ps 103:21, Lk 2:13. Though this actual phrase is not often used, the attendant ministers of J″ are often spoken of as an organized army (Gn 32:2, Jos 5:14, 2 K 6:17, Job 25:3). Cf. in this connexion the title ‘Lord of hosts (Sabaoth),’ which, though it may have been used originally of J″ as the leader of the armies of Israel, admittedly came to be used of Him as ruler of the celestial hosts (see Lord of Hosts). There are passages where the phrase ‘host of heaven’ is ambiguous, and may refer either to stars or to angels (Dn 4:35, Neh 9:6, Ps 148:2 [where it connects angels and sun, moon, and stars]).
3. It remains to consider the connexion between the two uses of the phrase. It has been supposed by some to be purely verbal, stars and angels being independently compared to an army; or it has been suggested that the stars were ‘the visible image’ of the host of angels. But a study of the passages quoted above will probably lead to the conclusion that the connexion is closer. The idolaters evidently regarded the stars as animate; prophets and poets seem to do so too. When this is done, it lies very near at hand to identify them with, or at least assimilate them to, the angels. In the ancient myths and folklore, the traces of which in the Bible are increasingly recognized, stars and angels play a large part, and the conception of the two is not kept distinct. Later thought tended to identify them (Enoch 18:12, 21:1 etc., Rev 9:1, 11; cf. Is 14:12, Lk 10:18). Hence the one use of the phrase ‘host of heaven’ ran naturally into the other, and it seems impossible to draw a sharp line of distinction between the two. As we have seen, there are passages where it is ambiguous, or where it seems to imply the personification of the stars, i.e. their practical identification with angels. While there is no reason why the spiritual teachers of Israel should not have countenanced this belief at a certain stage and to a certain point, and should not have adopted in a modified form the eschatology in which it figured, it is of course clear that the conception was kept free from its grosser and superstitious features. Whatever it may have been in the popular mind, to them it is little more than a metaphor, and nothing either distantly resembling the fear or the worship of the stars receives any countenance in their teaching. It is, however, worth while insisting on the full force of their language as affording a key to the reconstruction of the popular beliefs which seem to lie behind it. It should be noted that Wis 13:2 protests against any idea that the heavenly bodies are animate, and it has been suggested that Ezekiel’s avoidance of the phrase ‘Lord of hosts’ may be due to a fear of seeming to lend any countenance to star-worship.
C. W. Emmet.
HOTHAM.—1. An Asherite (1 Ch 7:32). 2. Father of two of David’s heroes (1 Ch 11:44).
HOTHIR.—A son of Heman (1 Ch 25:4).
HOUGH.—The hough (modern spelling ‘hock’) of a quadruped is the joint between the knee and the fetlock in the hind leg; in man the back of the knee joint, called the ham. To ‘hough’ is to cut the tendon of the hough, to hamstring. The subst. occurs in 2 Es 15:36 ‘the camel’s hough’ (AVm ‘pastern or litter’). The verb is found in Jos 11:6, 9, 2 S 8:4, 1 Ch 18:4 always of houghing horses. Tindale translates Gn 49:6 ‘In their selfe-will they houghed an oxe,’ which is retained in
AVm, and inserted into the text of RV in place of ‘they digged down a wall.’ HOUR.—See Time.
HOUSE.—The history of human habitation in Palestine goes back to the undated spaces of the palæolithic or early stone age (see especially the important chapter on ‘Prehistoric Archæology’ in Vincent, Canaan d’après l’exploration récente, 1907, pp. 373 ff.). The excavations and discoveries, of the last few years in particular, have introduced us to the pre-historic inhabitants whom the Semitic invaders, loosely termed Canaanites or Amorites, found in occupation of the country somewhere in the third millennium before our era (circa b.c. 2500). The men of this early race were still in the neolithic stage of civilization, their only implements being of polished flint, bone, and wood. They lived for the most part in the natural limestone caves in which Palestine abounds. In the historical period such underground caves (for descriptions and diagrams of some of the more celebrated, see Schumacher, Across the Jordan, 135–146; Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, 204–270) were used by the Hebrews as places of refuge in times of national danger (Jg 6:2, 1 S 13:6) and religious persecution (2 Mac 6:11, He 11:38). But it is not with these, or with the tents in which the patriarchs and their descendants lived before the conquest of Canaan, that this article has to deal, but with the houses of clay and stone which were built and occupied after that epoch.
1. Materials.—The most primitive of all the houses for which man has been indebted to his own inventiveness is that formed of a few leafy boughs from the primeval forest, represented in Hebrew history to this day by the booths of OT ( see Booth). Of more permanent habitations, the earliest of which traces have been discovered are probably the mud huts, whose foundations were found by Mr. Macalister in the lowest stratum at Gezer, and which are regarded by him as the work of the cave-dwellers of the later stone age (PEFSt, 1904, 110). Clay in the form of bricks, either sun-dried or, less frequently, baked in a kiln (see Brick), and stone (Lv 14:40ff., Is 9:10 etc.), have been in all ages the building materials of the successive inhabitants of Palestine. Even in districts where stone was available the more tractable material was often preferred. Houses built of crude brick are the ‘houses of clay,’ the unsubstantial nature of which is emphasized in Job 4:19f., and whose walls a thief or another could easily dig through (Ezk 12:5, Mt 6:19f.).
The excavations have shown that there is no uniformity, even at a given epoch, in the size of bricks, which are both rectangular and square in shape. The largest, apparently, have been found at Taanach, roughly 21 inches by 153/4, and 43/4 inches in thickness. At Gezer a common size is a square brick 15 inches in the side and 7 inches’ thick (PEFSt, 1902, 319). In the Mishna the standard size is a square brick 9 inches each way (Erubin, i. 3).
The stone used for house building varied from common field stones and larger, roughly shaped, quarry stones to the carefully dressed wrought stone (gāzith, 1 K 5:17 RV) or ‘hewn-stone, according to measure, sawed with saws’ (7:9), such as was used by Solomon in his building operations. Similarly rubble, wrought stone, and brick are named in the Mishna as the building materials of the time (Baba bathra, i. 1). For mortar clay was the usual material, although the use of bitumen [wh. see] (Gn 11:3 RVm, EV ‘slime’) was not unknown. Wood as a building material was employed mainly for roofing, and to a less extent for internal decoration (see below).
2. General plan of Hebrew houses.—The recent excavations at Gezer and elsewhere have shown that the simplest type of house in Palestine has scarcely altered in any respect for four thousand years. Indeed, its construction is so simple that the possibility of change is reduced to a minimum. In a Syrian village of today the typical abode of the fellah consists of a walled enclosure, within which is a small court closed at the farther end by a house of a single room. This is frequently divided into two parts, one level with the entrance, assigned at night to the domestic animals, cows, ass, etc.; the other, about 18 in. higher, occupied by the peasant and his family. A somewhat better class of house consists of two or three rooms, of which the largest is the family living and sleeping room, a second is assigned to the cattle, while a third serves as general store-room (AV closet).
The Canaanite houses, which the Hebrews inherited (Dt 6:10) and copied, are now known to have been arranged on similar lines (see the diagram of a typical Canaanite house in Gezer, restored by Mr. Macalister in his Bible Sidelights from Gezer [1906], fig. 25). As in all Eastern domestic architecture, the rooms were built on one or more sides of an open court (2 S 17:18, Jer 32:2 etc.). These rooms were of small dimensions, 12 to 15 feet square as a rule, with which may be compared the legal definition of ‘large’ and ‘small’ rooms in the late period of the Mishna. The former was held to measure 15 ft. by 12, with a height, following the model of the Temple (1 K 6:2ff.), equal to half the sum of the length and breadth, namely, 131/2 ft.; a ‘small’ room measured 12ft. by 9, with a height of 101/2 ft. (Baba bathra, vi. 4).
Should occasion arise, through the marriage of a son or otherwise, to enlarge the house, this was done by building one or more additional rooms on another side of the court. In the case of a ‘man of wealth’ (1 S 9:1 RVm), the house would consist of two or even more courts, in which case the rooms about the ‘inner court’ (Est 4:11) were appropriated to the women of the family. The court, further, often contained a cistern to catch and retain the precious supply of water that fell in the rainy season (2 S 17:18). For the question of an upper storey see § 4.
3. Foundation and dedication rites.—In building a house, the first step was to dig out the space required for the foundation (cf. Mt 7:24ff.), after which came the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone, the ‘corner stone of sure foundation’ of Is 28:16 (see, further, Corner-Stone). The ‘day of the foundation’ (2 Ch 8:16), as we learn from the poetic figure of Job 38:6ff., was, as it is at the present day, one of great rejoicing (cf. Ezr 3:11).
With the exception of a passage to be cited presently, the OT is silent regarding a foundation rite on which a lurid light has been cast by the latest excavations in Palestine. It is now certain that the Canaanites, and the Hebrews after them, were wont to consecrate the foundation of a new building by a human sacrifice. The precise details of the rite are still uncertain, but there is already ample evidence to show that, down even to ‘the latter half of the Hebrew monarchy’ (PEFSt, 1903 , 224), it was a frequent practice to bury infants, whether alive or after previous sacrifice is still doubtful, in large jars ‘generally under the ends of walls,—that is, at the corners of houses or chambers or just under the door jambs’ (ibid. 306). At Megiddo was found the skeleton of a girl of about fifteen years, who had clearly been built alive into the foundation of a fortress; at Taanach was found one of ten years of age; and skeletons of adults have also been discovered.
An interesting development of this rite of foundation sacrifice can be traced from the fifteenth century b.c. onwards. With the jar containing the body of the victim there were at first deposited other jars containing jugs, howls, and a lamp, perhaps also food, as in ordinary burials. Gradually, it would seem, lamps and bowls came to be buried alone, as substitutes and symbols of the human victim, most frequently a lamp within a bowl, with another bowl as covering. Full details of this curious rite cannot be given here, but no other theory so plausible has yet been suggested to explain these ‘lamp and bowl deposits’ (see Macalister’s reports in PEFSt, from 1903–esp. p. 306 ff. with illustrations—onwards, also his Bible Sidelights, 165 ff.; Vincent, Canaan, 50 f., 192, 198ff.). The only reference to foundation sacrifice in OT is the case of Hiel the Bethelite, who sacrificed his two sons—for that such is the true interpretation can now scarcely be doubted—his firstborn at the re-founding of Jericho, and his youngest at the completion and dedication of the walls and gates (1 K 16:34 RV).
Here by anticipation may be taken the rite of the formal dedication of a private house, which is attested by Dt 20:5, although the references in Hebrew literature to the actual ceremony are confined to sacred and public buildings (Lv 8:10ff., 1 K 8:1ff., 10ff., Ezr 6:16 f., Neh 3:1, 12:27, 1 Mac 4:52ff.). It is not improbable that some of the human victims above alluded to may have been offered in connexion with the dedication or restoration of important buildings (cf. 1 K 16:34 above).
On the whole subject it may be said, in conclusion, that, judging from the ideas and practice of the Bedouin when a new tent or ‘house of hair’ is set up, we ought to seek the explanation of the rite of foundation sacrifice—a practice which obtains among many races widely separated in space and time—in the desire to propitiate the spirit whose abode is supposed to be disturbed by the new foundation ( cf. Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, 46 ff.), rather than in the wish to secure the spirit of the victim as the tutelary genius of the new building. This ancient custom still survives in the sacrifice of a sheep or other animal, which is indispensable to the safe occupation of a new house in Moslem lands, and even to the successful inauguration of a public work, such as a railway, or—as the other day in Damascus—of an electric lighting installation. In the words of an Arab sheik: ‘Every house must have its death—man, woman, child, or animal’ ( Curitiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day).
4. Details of construction, walls and floor.—The walls of Canaanite and
Hebrew houses were for the most part, as we have seen, of crude brick or stone. At Tell el-Hesy (Lachish), for example, we find at one period house walls of ‘darkbrown clay with little straw’; at another, walls of ‘reddish-yellow clay, full of straw’ (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities, 44). At Gezer Mr. Macalister found a wall that was ‘remarkable for being built in alternate courses of red and white bricks, the red course being four inches in height, the white five inches’ (PEFSt, 1903 , 216). As a rule, however, the Gezer house walls consisted of common field stones, among which dressed stones—even at corners and door posts—are of the rarest possible occurrence. The joints are wide and irregular, and filled with mud packed in the widest places with smaller stones’ (ibid. 215). The explanation of this simple architecture is that in early times each man built his own house, expert builders (Ps 118:22) or masons (see Arts and Crafts, § 3) being employed only on royal residences, city walls, and other buildings of importance. Hence squared and dressed stones are mentioned in OT only in connexion with such works (1 K 5:17 , 7:9) and the houses of the wealthy (Am 5:11, Is 9:10). In the Gezer houses of the post-exilic period, however, ‘the stones are well dressed and squared, often as well shaped as a modern brick’ (PEFSt, 1904, 124, with photograph, 125). Between these two extremes are found walls of rubble, and quarry stones of various sizes, roughly trimmed with a hammer. Mud was ‘universally used as mortar.’
In ordinary cases the thickness of the outside walls varied from 18 to 24 inches; that of partition walls, on the other hand, did not exceed 9 to 12 inches (ib. 118). In NT times the thickness varied somewhat with the materials employed (see Baba bathra, i. 1). It is doubtful if the common view is correct, which finds in certain passages, especially Ps 118:22 and its NT citations, a reference to a corner stone on the topmost course of masonry (see Corner). In most cases the reference is to the foundation stone at the corner of two walls, as explained above.
The inside walls of stone houses received a ‘plaister’ (EV) of clay (Lv 14:41 ff., AV ‘dust,’ RV ‘mortar’), or, in the better houses, of lime or gypsum (Dn 5:5). The ‘untempered mortar’ of Ezk 13:11, 22:28 was some sort of whitewash applied to the outside walls, as is attested for NT times (Mt 23:27, Ac 23:3 ‘thou whited wall’). In the houses of the wealthy, as in the Temple, it was customary to line the walls with cypress (2 Ch 3:5, EV ‘fir’), cedar, and other valuable woods (1 K 6:15 , 18, 7:7). The ‘cieled houses’ of EV (Jer 22:14, Hag 1:4 etc.) are houses panelled with wood in this way (Cieled). The acme of elegance was represented by cedar panels inlaid with ivory, such as earned for Ahab’s pleasure kiosk the name of ‘the ivory house’ (1 K 22:39) and incurred the denunciation of Amos (Am 3:15). We also hear of the panelled ‘cielings’ of the successive Temples (1 K 6:15, 2 Mac 1:16 RV).
The floors of the houses were in all periods made of hard beaten clay, the permanence of which to this day has proved to the excavators a precious indication of the successive occupations of the buried cities of Palestine. Public buildings have been found paved with slabs of stone. The better sort of private houses were no doubt, like the Temple (1 K 6:15), floored with cypress and other woods.
The presence of vaults or cellars, in the larger houses at least, is shown by Lk 11:33 RV. The excavations also show that when a wholly or partly ruined town was rebuilt, the houses of the older stratum were frequently retained as
underground store-rooms of the new houses on the higher level. The reference in 1 Ch 27:27, 28 to wine and oil ‘cellars’ (EV) is to ‘stores’ of these commodities, rather than to the places where the latter were kept.
5. The roof.—The ancient houses of Canaan, like their modern representatives, had flat roofs, supported by stout wooden beams laid from wall to wall. Across these were laid smaller rafters (Ca 1:17), then brushwood, reeds, and the like, above which was a layer of earth several inches thick, while on the top of all came a thick plaster of clay or of clay and lime. It was such a roofing (AV tiling, RV tiles, Lk 5:19) that the friends of the paralytic ‘broke up’ in order to lower him into the room below (Mk 2:4). The wood for the roof-beams was furnished mostly by the common sycamore, cypress (Ca 1:17) and cedar (1 K 6:9) being reserved for the homes of the wealthy. Hence the point of Isaiah’s contrast between the humble houses of crude brick, roofed with sycamore, and the stately edifices of hewn stone roofed with cedar (Is 9:10).
It was, and is, difficult to keep such a roof watertight in the rainy season, as Pr 27:15 shows. In several houses at Gezer a primitive drain of jars was found for carrying the water from the leaking roof (Ec 10:18 RV) through the floor to the foundations beneath (PEFSt, 1904, 14, with illust.). In the Mishna there is mention of at least two kinds of spout or gutter (2 S 5:8 AV, but the sense here is doubtful) for conveying the rain water from the roof to the cistern. Evidence has accumulated in recent years showing that even in the smallest houses it was usual to have the beams of the roof supported by a row of wooden posts, generally three in number, resting on stone bases, ‘from 1 foot 6 inches to 2 feet in diameter’ (PEFSt, 1904, 115, with photo.). The same method was adopted for the roofs of large public buildings (see Bliss, Mound of Many Cities, 91 f., with plan), and Mr. Macalister has ingeniously explained Samson’s feat at the temple of Dagon, by supposing that he slid two of the massive wooden pillars (Jg 16:29 f.) supporting the portico from their stone supports, thus causing its collapse (Bible Sidelights, 136 ff. with illust.).
The roof was required by law to be surrounded by a battlement, or rather a parapet, as a protection against accident (Dt 22:8). Access to the roof was apparently obtained, as at the present day, by an outside stair leading from the court. Our EV finds winding stairs in the Temple (1 K 6:8), and some sort of inner stair or ladder is required by the reference to the secret trapdoor in 2 Mac 1:16. The roof or housetop was put to many uses, domestic (Jos 2:6) and other. It was used, in particular, for recreation (2 S 11:2) and for sleeping (1 S 9:25 f.), also for prayer and meditation (Ac 10:9), lamentation (Is 15:3, Jer 48:38), and even for idolatrous worship (Jer 19:13, Zeph 1:5). For these and other purposes a tent (2 S 16:22) or a booth (Neh 8:16) might be provided, or a permanent roof-chamber might be erected. Such were the ‘chamber with walls’ (2 K 4:10 RVm) erected for Elisha, the ‘summer parlour’ (Jg 3:20, lit. as RVm ‘upper chamber of cooling’) of Eglon, and the ‘loft’ (RV ‘chamber’) of 1 K 17:19.
Otherwise the houses of Palestine were, as a rule, of one storey. Exceptions were confined to the houses of the great, and to crowded cities like Jerusalem and Samaria. Ahaziah’s upper chamber in the latter city (2 K 1:2) may well have been a room in the second storey of the royal palace, where was evidently the window from which Jezebel was thrown (9:33). The same may be said of the ‘upper room’ in which the Last Supper was held (Mk 14:15||; cf. Ac 1:13). It was a Greek city, however, in which Eutychus fell from a window in the ‘third story’ (Ac 20:9 RV).
6. The door and its parts.—The door consisted of four distinct parts: the door proper, the threshold, the lintel (Ex 12:7 RV), and the two doorposts. The first of these was of wood, and was hung upon projecting pivots of wood, the hinges of Pr
26:14, which turned in corresponding sockets in the threshold and lintel respectively. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Hebrews probably cased the pivots and sockets of heavy doors with bronze; those of the Temple doors were sheathed in gold (1 K 7:50). In the Hauran, doors of a single slab of stone with stone pivots are still found in situ. Folding doors are mentioned only in connexion with the Temple (1 K 6:34).
The threshold (Jg 19:27, 1 K 14:17 etc.) or sill must have been invariably of stone. Among the Hebrews, as among so many other peoples of antiquity, a special sanctity attached to the threshold (see Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, passim). The doorposts or jambs were square posts of wood (1 K 7:5, Ezk 41:21) or of stone. The command of Dt 6:9, 11:20 gave rise to the practice, still observed in all Jewish houses, of enclosing a piece of parchment containing the words of Dt 6:4– 9, 11:13–21 in a small case of metal or wood, which is nailed to the doorpost, hence its modern name mezuzah ( ‘doorpost’ ).
Doors were locked (Jg 3:23 f.) by an arrangement similar to that still in use in Syria (see the illust. in Hastings’ DB li. 836). This consists of a short upright piece of wood, fastened on the inside of the door, through which a square wooden bolt (Ca 5:5, Neh 3:3 RV, for AV lock) passes at right angles into a socket in the jamb of the door. When the bolt is shot by the hand, three to six small iron pins drop from the upright into holes in the bolt, which is hollow at this part. The latter cannot now be drawn back without the proper key. This is a flat piece of wood— straight or bent as the case may be—into the upper surface of which pins have been fixed corresponding exactly in number and position to the holes in the bolt. The person wishing to enter the house ‘puts in his hand by the hole of the door’ ( Ca 5:4), and inserts the key into the hollow part of the bolt in such a way that the pins of the key will displace those in the holes of the bolt, which is then easily withdrawn from the socket and the door is open.
In the larger houses it was customary to have a man (Mk 13:34) or a woman (2 S 4:6 RVm, Jn 18:17) to act as a doorkeeper or porter. In the palaces of royalty this was a military duty (1 K 14:27) and an office of distinction (Est 2:21, 6:2).
7. Lighting and heating.—The ancient Hebrew houses must have been very imperfectly lighted. Indeed, it is almost certain that, in the poorer houses at least, the only light available was admitted through the doorway (cf. Sir 42:11 [ Heb. text], ‘Let there be no casement where thy daughter dwells’), in any case, such windows as did exist were placed high up in the walls, at least six feet from the ground, according to the Mishna. We have no certain monumental evidence as to the size and construction of the windows of Hebrew houses (but see for a probable stone window-frame, 20 inches high, Bliss and Macalister, Excavs. in Palest. 143 and pl. 73). They may, however, safely be assumed to have been much smaller than those to which we are accustomed, although the commonest variety, the challōn, was large enough to allow a man to pass out (Jos 2:15, 1 S 19:12) or in ( Jl 2:9). Another variety (’arubbah) was evidently smaller, since it is used also to designate the holes of a dovecot (Is 60:8 EV ‘windows’). These and other terms are rendered in our versions by ‘window,’ lattice, and casement (Pr 7:6 AV and RV ‘lattice’). None of these, of course, was filled with glass. Like the windows of Egyptian houses, they were doubtless closed with wood or lattice-work, which could be opened when necessary (2 K 13:17). An obscure expression in 1 K 6:4 is rendered by RV, ‘windows of fixed lattice-work.’ During the hours of darkness, light was supplied by the small oil lamp which was kept continually burning ( see Lamp).
Most of the houses excavated show a depression of varying dimensions in the floor, either in the centre or in a corner, which, from the obvious traces of fire, was clearly the family hearth (Is 30:14). Wood was the chief fuel (see Coal), supplemented by withered vegetation of all sorts (Mt 6:30), and probably, as at the present day, by dried cow and camel dung (Ezk 4:15). The pungent smoke, which was trying to the eyes (Pr 10:26), escaped by the door or by the window, for the chimney of Hos 13:3 is properly ‘window’ or ‘casement’ (’arubbah, see above). In the cold season the upper classes warmed their rooms by means of a brasier ( Jer 36:22 f. RV), or fire-pan (Zec 12:6 RV).
8. Furniture of the house.—This in early times was of the simplest description. Even at the present day the fellahin sit and sleep mostly on mats and mattresses spread upon the floor. So the Hebrew will once have slept, wrapped in his simlah or cloak as ‘his only covering’ (Ex 22:27), while his household gear will have consisted’ mainly of the necessary utensils for the preparation of food, to which the following section is devoted. Under the monarchy, however, when a certain ‘great woman’ of Shunem proposed to furnish ‘a little chamber over the wall’ for Elisha, she named ‘a bed and a table and a stool and a candlestick’ (2 K 4:10), and we know otherwise that while the poor man slept on a simple mat of straw or rushes in the single room that served as living and sleeping room, the well-to-do had not only beds but bedchambers (2 S 4:7, 2 K 11:2, Jth 16:19 etc.). The former consisted of a framework of wood, on which were laid cushions (Am 3:12 RV), ‘carpets’ and ‘striped cloths’ (Pr 7:16 RV). We bear also of the ‘bed’s head’ ( Gn 47:31) or curved end, as figured by Wilkinson, Anc. Egyp. i. 416, fig. 191 ( where note the steps for ‘going up’ to the bed; cf. 1 K 1:4). Bolsters have rightly disappeared from RV, which renders otherwise (see 1 S 19:13, 26:7 etc.); the pillow also from Gn 28:11, 18 and Mk 4:38 (RV here, ‘cushion’), and where it is retained, as 1 S 19:13, the sense is doubtful. Reference may be made to the richly appointed bed of Holofernes, with its gorgeous mosquito curtain (Jth 10:21 , 13:9).
The bed often served as a couch by day (Ezk 23:41, Am 3:12 RV—see also
Meals, § 3), and it is sometimes uncertain which is the more suitable rendering. In Est 1:6, for example, RV rightly substitutes ‘couches’ for ‘beds’ in the description of the magnificent divans of gold and silver in the palace of Ahasuerus (cf. 7:8). The wealthy and luxurious contemporaries of Amos had their beds and couches inlaid with ivory (Am 6:4), and furnished, according to RV, with ‘silken cushions’ (3:12 RV).
As regards the stool above referred to, and the seats of the Hebrews generally, it must suffice to state that the seats of the contemporary Egyptians (for illustt. see Wilkinson, op. cit. i. 408 ff.) and Assyrians were of two main varieties, namely, stools and chairs. The former were constructed either with a square frame or after the shape of our camp-stools; the latter with a straight or rounded back only, or with a back and arms. The Hebrew word for Elisha’s stool is always applied elsewhere to the seats of persons of distinction and the thrones of kings; it must therefore have been a chair rather than a stool, although the latter is its usual meaning in the Mishna (Krengel, Das Hausgerät in der Mishnah, 10 f.—a mine of information regarding the furniture, native and foreign, to be found in Jewish houses in later times). Footstools were also in use (2 Ch 9:18 and oft., especially in metaphors).
The tables were chiefly of wood, and, like those of the Egyptians ( Wilkinson, op. cit. i. 417 f. with illustt.), were ‘round, square, or oblong,’ as the Mishna attests. They were relatively much smaller and lower than ours (see, further, Meals, § 4).
The fourth article in Elisha’s room was a candlestick, really a lampstand, for which see Lamp. It would extend this article beyond due limits to discuss even a selection from the many other articles of furniture, apart from those reserved for the closing section, which are named in Biblical and post-Biblical literature, or which have been brought to light in surprising abundance by the recent excavations. Mention can he made only of articles of toilet, such as the ‘molten mirror’ of Job 37:18 (AV looking-glass), the paint-pot (2 K 9:30), pins and needles, of which many specimens in bone, bronze, and silver have been found; of the distaff, spindle, and loom (see Spinning and Weaving), for the manufacture of the family garments, and the chest for holding them; and finally, of the children’s cradle (Krengel, op. cit. 26), and their toys of clay and bone.
9. Utensils connected with food.—Conspicuous among the ‘earthen vessels’ (2
S 17:28) of every household was the water-jar or pitcher (kad)—the barrel of 1 K
18:33, Amer. RV jar—in which water was fetched from the village well ( Gn 24:15, Mk 14:13, and oft.). From this smaller jar, carried on head or shoulder, the water was emptied into the larger waterpots of Jn 2:6. Large jars were also required for the household provisions of wheat and barley—one variety in NT times was large enough to hold a man. Others held the store of olives and other fruits. The cruse was a smaller jar with one or two handles, used for carrying water on a journey (1 S 26:11f., 1 K 19:6), also for holding oil (1 K 17:12). (See, further, art. Pottery, and the elaborate studies, with illustrations, of the thousands of ‘potter’s vessels’ which the excavations have brought to light, in the great work of Bliss and Macalister entitled Excavations in Palestine, 1898–1900, pp. 71–141 , with plates 20–55; also Vincent’s Canaan d’après l’exploration récente, 1907, pp. 296–360, with the illustrations there and throughout the book).
The bucket of Nu 24:7, Is 40:15 was a water-skin, probably adapted, as at the present day, for drawing water by having two pieces of wood inserted crosswise at the mouth. The main use of skins among the Hebrews, however, was to hold the wine and other fermented liquors. The misleading rendering bottles is retained in RV except where the context requires the true rendering ‘skins’ or ‘wine-skins’
(Jos 9:4, 13, Mt 9:17). For another use of skins see Milk. ‘After the water-skins,’ says Doughty, ‘a pair of mill-stones is the most necessary husbandry in an Arabian household,’ and so it was among the Hebrews, as may be seen in the article Mill.
No house was complete without a supply of baskets of various sizes and shapes for the bread (Ex 29:23) and the fruit (Dt 26:2), and even in early times for the serving of meat (Jg 6:19). Among the ‘vessels of wood’ of Lv 15:12 was the indispensable wooden howl, which served as a kneading-trough (Ex 12:34), and various other bowls, such as the ‘lordly dish’ of the nomad Jael (Jg 5:25) and the bowl of Gideon (6:38), although the howls were mostly of earthenware (see Bowl).
As regards the actual preparation of food, apart from the oven (for which see Bread), our attention is drawn chiefly to the various members of the pot family, so to say. Four of these are named together in 1 S 2:14, the kiyyōr, the dūd, the qallachath, and the pārūr, rendered respectively the pan, the kettle, the caldron, and the pot. Elsewhere these terms are rendered with small attempt at consistency; while a fifth, the most frequently named of all, the sīr, is the flesh-pot of Ex 3:16 , the ‘great pot’ of 2 K 4:38, and the ‘caldron’ of Jer 1:13. In what respect these differed it is impossible to say. The sīr was evidently of large size and made of bronze (1 K 7:45), while the pārūr was small and of earthenware, hence ben-Sira’s question: ‘What fellowship hath the [earthen] pot with the [bronze] caldron?’ ( Sir 13:2, Heb. text). The kiyyōr, again, was wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep. Numerous illustrations of cooking-pots from OT times may be seen in the recent works above referred to. The only cooking utensils known to be of iron are the baking-pan (Lv 2:5 RV), probably a shallow iron plate (see Ezk 4:3), and the frying-pan (Lv 2:7). A knife, originally of flint (Jos 5:2) and later of bronze, was required for cutting up the meat to be cooked (Gn 22:6, 10, Jg 19:29), and a fork for lifting it from the pot (1 S 2:13 EV fleshhook [wh. see]).
In the collection of pottery figured in Bliss and Macalister’s work one must seek the counterparts of the various dishes, mostly wide, deep howls, in which we read of food being served, such as the ‘dish’ from which the sluggard is too lazy to withdraw his hand (Pr 19:24 RV), and the chargers of Nu 7:13, though here they are of silver (see, further, Meals, § 5). In the same work the student will find an almost endless variety of cups, some for drawing the ‘cup of cold water’ from the large water-jars, others for wine—flagons, jugs, and juglets. The material of all of these will have ascended from the coarsest earthenware to bronze (Lv 6:28), and from bronze to silver (Nu 7:13, Jth 12:1) and gold (1 K 10:21, Est 1:7), according to the rank and wealth of their owners and the purposes for which they were designed.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HOZAI is given as a prop. name in RV of 2 Ch 33:19, where AV and RVm give ‘the seers.’ AVm has Hosai. If we retain the MT, the tr. of RV seems the only defensible one, but perhaps the original reading was ‘his seers.’
HUKKOK.—A place near Tabor on the west of Naphtali (Jos 19:34). It may be the present village Yākūk near the edge of the plateau to the N.W. of the Sea of
Galilee.
HUKOK.—See Helkath.
HUL.—The eponym of an Aramæan tribe (Gn 10:23) whose location is quite uncertain.
HULDAH (‘weasel’; an old totem clan-name—so W. R. Smith).—‘The prophetess, wife of Shallum, keeper of the wardrobe,’ living in a part of Jerusalem called the Mishneh (‘second quarter’), whose advice Josiah sought, by a deputation of his chief ministers, on the alarming discovery of ‘the book of the law’ in the Temple, in 621 b.c. (2 K 22:3–20 = 2 Ch 34:8–28). Her response was threatening for the nation, in the strain of Jeremiah, while promising exemption to the pious king. Huldah ranks with Deborah and Hannah among the rare women-prophets of the OT.
G. G. Findlay.
HUMILITY.—Trench defines ‘humility’ as the esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so; the thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of ourselves. Alford, Ellicott, Salmond, Vincent, and many others agree. It is an inadequate and faulty definition. A man may be small and may realize his smallness, and yet be far from being humble. His spirit may be full of envy instead of humility. He may be depressed in spirit because he sees his own meanness and general worthlessness, and yet he may be as rebellious against his lot or his constitutional proclivities as he is clearly cognizant of them. Low-mindedness is not lowly-mindedness. The exhortation of Ph 2:3 does not mean that every man ought to think that everybody else is better than himself in moral character, or in outward conduct, or in natural or inherited powers. That would be impossible in some cases and untruthful in many others. It is not an exhortation to either an impossibility or an untruthfulness. A better definition of the Christian grace of humility is found in the union of highest self-respect with uttermost abandon of sacrifice in service. A man who knows his own superior worth and yet is willing to serve his inferiors in Christian love is a humble man. The classic example in the NT is Jn 13:3–15. The Lord, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He came forth from God and would go again unto God, knowing His incomparable superiority to every one in that company, was yet so meek and lowly in heart, so humble in spirit and ready for service, that He girded Himself with a towel and washed the disciples’ feet. The consciousness of His own transcendent worth was in no respect inconsistent with His humility. Genuine humility leads the strong to serve the weak. It never underestimates its own worth, but in utter unselfishness it is ready to sacrifice its own claims at any moment for the general good. Genuine humility loses all its self-conceit but never loses its selfrespect. It is consistent with the highest dignity of character and life. Hence we may rightly call the Incarnation the Humiliation of Christ. He stood at the head of the heavenly hierarchies. He was equal with God. There was no dignity in the universe like unto His. Yet He humbled Himself to become a man. He made Himself of no reputation. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. He was the servant of all. There was no humility in the universe like unto His. He never forgot His dignity. When Pilate asked Him if He were a king, He answered that He was. He stood in kingly majesty before the mob, in kingly serenity before the magistrates; He hung as King upon the cross. Yet He never forgot His humility. Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. St. Paul exhorts, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Ph 2:5–11). God giveth grace to all who are thus humble (Ja 4:6).
When Augustine was asked, ‘What is the first article in the Christian religion?’ he answered, ‘Humility.’ And they said, ‘What is the second?’ and he said,
‘Humility.’ And they said, ‘What is the third?’ and he said the third time,
‘Humility.’ Pascal said: ‘Vanity has taken so firm a hold on the heart of man, that a porter, a hodman, a turn-spit, can talk greatly of himself, and is for having his admirers. Philosophers who write of the contempt of glory do yet desire the glory of writing well, and those who read their compositions would not lose the glory of having read them. We are so presumptuous as that we desire to be known to all the world; and even to those who are not to come into the world till we have left it. And at the same time we are so little and vain as that the esteem of five or six persons about us is enough to content and amuse us.’
D. A. Hayes.
HUMTAH.—A city of Judah (Jos 15:54). The site is doubtful.
HUNTING is not conspicuous in the literature of the Hebrews that remains to us. We may probably infer that it did not bulk largely in their life. As an amusement, it seems to belong to a more advanced stage of civilization than they had reached. The typical hunter was found outside their borders (Gn 10:9). Esau, skilful in the chase, is depicted as somewhat uncouth and simple (Gn 25:27 etc.). Not till the time of Herod do we hear of a king achieving excellence in this form of sport (Jos. BJ I. xxi. 13). Wild animals and birds were, however, appreciated as food (Lv 17:13, 1 S 26:20 etc.); and in a country like Palestine, abounding in beasts and birds of prey, some proficiency in the huntsman’s art was necessary in order to secure the safety of the community, and the protection of the flocks. Among these ‘evil beasts’ lions and bears were the most dangerous (Gn 37:33, 1 K 13:24, 2 K 2:24, Pr 28:15 etc.). Deeds of prowess in the slaughter of such animals—by Samson in self-defence (Jg 14:6), David the shepherd to rescue his charges (1 S 17:34), and Benaiah (2 S 23:20)—gained for these men abiding fame. H. P. Smith (Samuel, in loc.) would read of Benaiah: ‘He used to go down and smite the lions in the pit on snowy days,’ when he could track them easily. The difficulty is that snowy days would be rather few to permit of his making a reputation in this way.
Among the animals hunted for food were the gazelle, the hart, the roebuck, and the wild goat (Dt 12:15, 22, 14:5 etc.). The first three are mentioned specially as furnishing the table of Solomon (1 K 4:23). The partridge was perhaps the bird chiefly hunted in ancient times, as it is at the present day (1 S 26:20). Neither beast nor bird might be eaten unless the blood had been ‘poured out’ (Lv 17:13, Dt 12:16 etc.)—a law still observed by the Moslems.
Little information is given in Scripture as to the methods followed by the huntsmen. The hunting dog is not mentioned; but it is familiar to Josephus (Ant. VI. viii. 9). The following implements were in use, viz.:—the bow and arrow ( Gn 27:3 etc.), the club (Job 41:29), nets (Job 19:6, Ps 9:16, Is 51:20 etc.), pits, in which there might be a net, dug and concealed to entrap the larger animals ( Ps 9:15, Ezk 19:8 etc.), the sling (1 S 17:40), the snare of the fowler (Ps 64:5, 91:3 ,
124:7). The tame partridge in a cage was used as a decoy (Sir 11:30). The modern Syrian is not greatly addicted to hunting. Occasional raids are made upon the bears on Mt. Hermon. To the scandal of Jew and Moslem, Christians sometimes hunt the wild boar in the Huleh marshes, and in the thickets beyond Jordan. See also Nets, Snares, etc.
W. Ewing.
HUPHAM.—See Huppim.
HUPPAH.—A priest of the 13th course (1 Ch 24:13).
HUPPIM.—The head of a Benjamite family (Gn 46:21 P, 1 Ch 7:12, 15, Nu 26:39 [Hupham]).
HUR.—The name is possibly of Egyptian origin. 1. With Aaron he held up Moses’ hands, in order that by the continual uplifting of the sacred staff Israel might prevail over Amalek (Ex 17:10, 12 E). With Aaron he was left in charge of the people when Moses ascended the mountain (24:14 E). 2. A Judahite, the grandfather of Bezalel (Ex 31:2, 35:30, 38:22 P). According to the Chronicler, he was descended from Perez, through Hezron and Caleb (1 Ch 2:19f, 50, 4:1–4, 2 Ch 1:5); and in Jos. Ant. III. ii. 4, vi. 1, he is the husband of Miriam, and identical with
1. 3. One of the kings of Midian slain after the sin at Peor (Nu 31:8); described as ‘chiefs’ of Midian, and ‘princes’ of Sihon (Jos 13:21). 4. The father of one of the twelve officers who supplied Solomon and his court with food (1 K 4:8 RV ‘Benhur’) 5. The father of Rephaiah, who was a ruler of half of Jerusalem, and who helped to repair the walls (Neh 3:9). LXX omits the name Hur.
A. H. M’Neile.
HURAI.—See Hiddai.
HURAM.—1. A Benjamite (1 Ch 8:5). 2. 3. See Hiram, 1 and 2.
HURI.—A Gadite (1 Ch 5:14).
HUSBAND.—See Family.
HUSBANDMAN, HUSBANDRY.—In EV the former is, in most cases, synonymous with ‘a tiller of the ground,’ which RV has substituted for it in Zec 13:5–—in modern English, a farmer. The first farmer mentioned in OT, therefore, is not Noah the ‘husbandman’ (Gn 9:20), but Cain the ‘tiller of the ground’ (4:2). In Jn 15:1, however, the former has the more limited sense of vinedresser: ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser’ (AV and RV ‘husbandman’). So, too, in the parable of the Vineyard (Mt 21:33 ff. ).
‘Husbandry,’ in the same way, is tillage, farming. Thus of king Uzziah it is said that ‘he loved husbandry’ (lit. ‘the land’ in the modern sense, 2 Ch 26:10), that is, as the context shows, he loved and fostered agriculture, including viticulture. In 1 Co 3:9 ‘husbandry’ is used by metonymy of the land tilled (cf. RVm): ‘ye are God’s field’ (Weymouth, The NT in Modern Speech).
A. R. S. Kennedy.
HUSHAH.—Son of Ezer, the son of Hur (see Hur, 2), and therefore of the tribe of Judah (1 Ch 4:4).
HUSHAI.—An Archite (2 S 15:32, 17:5, 14), i.e. a native of ‘the border of the Archites’ (Jos 16:2) to the W. of Bethel. He is further described as ‘the friend of
David’ (15:37), while at 2 S 16:16 the two titles are united. At the rebellion of Absalom he was induced by David to act as if he favoured the cause of the king’s son. By so doing he was enabled both to defeat the plans of Ahithophel and to keep David informed (by means of Ahimaaz and Jonathan, the sons of Zadok and Abiathar the priests) of the progress of events in Jerusalem (2 S 16:16–17:23). He is probably to be identified with the father of Baana, one of Solomon’s twelve commissariat officers (1 K 4:16).
HUSHAM.—A king of Edom (Gn 36:34, 35 = 1 Ch 1:45, 46).
HUSHATHITE (prob. = an inhabitant of Hushah).—This description is applied to Sibbecai, one of David’s thirty heroes (2 S 21:18 = 1 Ch 20:4, 2 S 23:27 = 1 Ch 11:29, 27:11).
HUSHIM.—1. The eponym of a Danite family (Gn 46:23); called in Nu 26:42
Shuham. In 1 Ch 7:12 Hushim seems to be a Benjamite, but it is possible that for ‘sons of Aher’ we should read ‘sons of another,’ i.e. Dan. 2. The wife of Shaharaim the Benjamite (1 Ch 8:8, 11).
HUSKS (keratia, Lk 15:16) are almost certainly the pods of the carob tree
(Ceratonia siliqua), commonly called the locust tree. This common Palestine tree is distinguished by its beautiful dark glossy foliage. The long pods, which ripen from May to August according to the altitude, are even to-day used as food by the poor; a confection is made from them. But they are used chiefly for cattle. The name ‘St. John’s bread’ is given to these pods, from a tradition that these, and not locusts, composed the food of St. John the Baptist, but see Food, 18.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HUZZAB.—A word occurring in Nah 2:7. Gesenius derived it from a verb tsābhabh, and read ‘the palace is dissolved and made to flow down.’ Many recent authorities regard it as from nātsabh, and tr. ‘it is decreed.’ But Wellhausen and others have considered it a proper name—referring to the Assyrian queen, or to the city of Nineveh personified.
W. M. Nesbit.
HYACINTH.—Rev 9:17 RV; AV ‘jacinth.’ See Jewels and Precious Stones.
HYÆNA (zābuā‘, Jer 12:9 [but see art. Speckled Bird]. Zeboim [1 S 13:18] probably means ‘[Valley of] Hyænas’).—The hyæna (Arab. daba‘) is a very common Palestine animal, concerning which the fellahīn have countless tales. It is both hated and dreaded; it consumes dead bodies, and will even dig up corpses in the cemeteries; the writer has known such rifling of graves to occur on the Mount of Olives. It is nocturnal in its habits; in the day-time it hides in solitary caves, to which the fellahīn often follow it and attack it by various curious devices. In the gathering dusk and at night the hungry hyæna frequently becomes very bold, and will follow with relentless persistence a solitary pedestrian, who, if he cannot reach safety, will surely be killed. In spite of its habits it is eaten at times by the Bedouin.
E. W. G. Masterman.
HYDASPES.—A river mentioned in Jth 1:6 as on the Medo-Babylonian frontier. The name is probably the result of a confusion with the well-known Hydaspes in India (now the Jatam). In view of the mythical character of the Book of Judith, speculation as to the identity of this river is likely to remain fruitless. However, there may be a suggestion in the fact that the Syr. version reads Ulai (wh. see).
W. M. Nesbit.
HYMENÆUS.—A heretical Christian associated with Alexander in 1 Ti 1:19f., and with Philetus in 2 Ti 2:17f., though some have considered that two different persons are meant. These false teachers ‘made shipwreck concerning the faith’; their heresy consisted in denying the bodily resurrection, saying that the resurrection was already past—apparently an early form of Gnosticism which, starting with the idea of matter being evil, made the body an unessential part of our nature, to be discarded as soon as possible. In the former passage St. Paul says that he ‘delivered’ the offenders ‘unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme’; he uses a similar phrase of the incestuous Corinthian (1 Co 5:5), there also expressing the purpose of the punishment,—the salvation of the man’s spirit. The phrase may mean simple excommunication with renunciation of all fellowship, or may include a miraculous infliction of disease, or even of death. Ramsay suggests that it is a Christian adaptation of a pagan idea, when a person wronged by another, but unable to retaliate, consigned the offender to the gods and left punishment to be inflicted by Divine power.
A. J. Maclean.
HYMN (in NT; for OT, see Music, Poetry, Psalms).—The Greek word signified specifically a poem in praise of a god or hero, but it is used, less exactly, also for a religious poem, even one of petition. The use of hymns in the early Christian Church was to be anticipated from the very nature of worship, and from the close connexion between the worship of the disciples and that of the Jews of that and earlier centuries. It is proved by the numerous incidental references in the NT (cf. Ac 16:25, 1 Co 14:26, Eph 5:19, Ja 5:13, and the passages cited below), and by the famous letter of Pliny to Trajan describing the customs of the Christians. We lack, however, any collection of hymns comparable to the Psalms of the OT. Doubtless the Psalms were largely used, as at the Passover feast when the Lord’s Supper was instituted (Mt 26:30); but in addition new songs would be written to express the Intense emotions of the disciples, and even their spontaneous utterances in the gatherings of early Christians would almost inevitably take a rhythmical form, modelled more or less closely upon the Psalms. In some localities, perhaps, Greek hymns served as the models. St. Paul insists (1 Co 14:15 , Col 3:16) that the singing be with the spirit and the understanding, an intelligent expression of real religious feeling. These passages specify ‘psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.’ While at first it seems as if three classes of composition are here distinguished, either as to source or character, it is probably not the case, especially as in Mt 26:30, Mk 14:26 the verb ‘to hymn’ is used of singing a psalm. Luke’s Gospel contains several hymns, but does not mention their use by the disciples. They are the Magnificat (Lk 1:46–55), the Benedictus (1:68–76), the Gloria in
Excelsis (2:14), and the Nunc Dimittis (2:29–32). Whether these were Jewish or Jewish-Christian in origin is disputed. The free introduction of hymns of praise in the Apocalypse, in description of the worship of the new Jerusalem, points to their use by the early Church. The poetical and liturgical character of some other NT passages is asserted with more or less reason by different scholars (e.g. Eph 5:14, 1
Ti 1:17, 3:16, 6:16, 2 Ti 4:18). See Hastings’ DCG, art. ‘Hymn.’
Owen H. Gates.
HYPOCRITE.—This word occurs in the NT only in the Synoptic Gospels; but ‘hypocrisy’ is used in the Epistles (Gal 2:13, 1 Ti 4:2, 1 P 2:1), and the verb ‘to play the hypocrite’ in Lk 20:20 (tr. ‘feigned’). The hypocrisy of the Gospels is the