NAATHUS (1 Es 9:31) = Ezr 10:30 Adna.

NABAL.—A wealthy but churlish sheep-owner ‘in Maon, whose business was in Carmel’ (I S 25:2 RVm). David, while living as an outlaw and freebooter, demanded at Nabal’s sheepshearing his reward for defending his flocks (1 S 25:5 ff.). Nabal, inflamed with wine, returned an insolent answer, and David was prevented from wreaking terrible vengeance only by the timely arrival of Abigail, Nabal’s wife, with large gifts and abundant flattery. The word Nabal means ‘fool,’ and Abigail, with wifely candour, says to David, ‘Fool is his name and fool is he.’ The next day Nabal was informed of all that had happened, and the shock of discovery brought on an apoplectic seizure, which caused his death. Abigail then became David’s wife.

W. F. BOYD.

NABARIAS (1 Es 9:44) = Neh 8:4, Hashbaddanah.

NABAT(H)ÆANS (1 Mac 5:25, 9:35).—See ARABIA, ARETAS, EDOM, NEBAIOTH.

NABOTH.—A man of Jezreel, owner of a vineyard adjoining the palace of Ahab (1 K 21:1). The king, desiring to add the vineyard to his lands, offered to buy it or exchange it for another. Naboth, however, refused to give up ‘the inheritance of his fathers.’ Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, by using the royal authority with the elders of the city, had Naboth accused of treason and blasphemy, and stoned to death. As Ahab went to take possession of the vineyard, he was met by Elijah, the prophet, who pronounced doom on him and his house. The murder of Naboth seems to have deeply impressed the popular mind, and the deaths of Joram and Jezebel near the spot were regarded as Divine retribution on the act (2 K 9:25, 36).

W. F. BOYD.

NABUCHODONOSOR, the Gr. form of the name Nehuchadrezzar (wh. see), is retained by RV in 1 Es 1:40ff., Ad. Est 11:4, Bar 1:9ff.

NACON.—See CHIDON.

NADAB.—1. The eldest son of Aaron (Ex 6:23, Nu 3:2, 26:60, 1 Ch 6:3, 24:1); accompanied Moses to Sinai (Ex 24:1, 9f.); was admitted to the priestly office (Ex 28:1) ; and on the very day of his consecration (Lv 10:12ff. compared with ch. 9) he and Abihu perished (Lv 10:1, 2, Nu 3:4, 26:61, 1 Ch 24:2) for offering ‘strange fire.’ Wherein the transgression of Nadab and Abihu is supposed to have consisted is not clear. It is often suggested that ‘strange’ fire means fire taken from a common source instead of from the altar (cf. Lv 16:12, Nu 16:46). 2. A Jerahmeelite (1 Ch 2:28, 30). 3. A Benjamite (1 Ch 8:30 = 9:35). 4. See next article.

NADAB was king of Israel two years or parts of years after his father Jeroboam I. He was assassinated by one of his generals, Baasha, who became king in his place (1 K 14:20, 15:25ff.). H. P. SMITH.

NADABATH.—An unidentified town (?), east of the Jordan, in the neighbourhood of which a wedding party of the sons of Jambri was attacked, and many of them slain, by Jonathan and Simon (1 Mac 9:37ff.).

NAGGAI.—An ancestor of Jesus (Lk 3:25); cf. the Heb. name Nogah.

NAHALAL (in Jg 1:30 Nahalol).—A town of Zebulun (Jos 19:15), given to the Levites

(21:35) . Its inhabitants were not expelled by the Zebulunites, but were made tributary (Jg 1:30). A possible site is ‘Ain Mahil, north of Nazareth, on the hill which formed the limit of Zebulun to the east. Another is Ma‘lul, a village west of Nazareth, and on the south border of Zebulun.

NAHALIEL.—A station in the journey from the Arnon to Jericho (Nu 21:19), either Wādy Waleh, a N.E. tributary of the Arnon, or the Wādy Zerka Ma‘in, farther north, which runs into the Dead Sea.

NAHALOL.—See NAHALAL.

NAHAM.—The father of Keilah (1 Ch 4:19).

NAHAMANI.—One of the twelve heads of the Jewish community (Neh 7:7); omitted in Ezr 2:2; called in 1 Es 5:8 Eneneus.

NAHARAI.—The armourbearer of Joab (2 S 23:37, 1 Ch 11:39).

NAHASH.—1. A king of Ammon, who demanded the surrender of the men of Jabeshgilead, with the loss of the right eye of each (1 S 11:1f.). So sure was he of their helplessness that he allowed them seven days’ respite in which to appeal for help. Saul, newly designated as Israel’s future king, was ploughing in the fields when the news was brought to him. He sacrificed the oxen sent parts of the sacrifice to his fellow-countrymen with a command to muster, and promptly destroyed the Ammonites. Probably this is the Nahash who was kind to Saul’s enemy

David (2 S 10:2, 1 Ch 19:1), and whos son Shobi (2 S 17:27) brought supplies to David a Mahanaim. 2. Father of David’s half-sisters, Abigai and Zeruiah, if the text of 2 S 17:25 is correct, which is doubtful. According to Buchanan Gray, ‘daughte of Nahash’ may have crept into the text from ‘son of Nahash’ in v. 27; cf. 1 Ch 2:16.

J. H. STEVENSON.

NAHATH.—1. A ‘duke’ of Edom (Gn 36:13, 1 Ch 1:37) 2. A Kohathite Levite (1 Ch 6:26, called in v. 34 Toah and in 1 S 1:1 Tohu). 3. A Levite in the time of Heze kiah (2 Ch 31:13). NAHBI.—The Naphtalite spy (Nu 13:14).

NAHOR.—1. Father of Terah and grandfather of Abra ham (Gn 11:22–25 , 1 Ch 1:26, Lk

3:34). 2. Grandson of the preceding and brother of Abraham and Haran (Gn 11:25–27 cf. Jos 24:2) . He is said to have married Milcah, daughte of Haran (Gn 11:29), and twelve sohs are enumerated eight by Milcah and four by Re’umah his concubim (Gn 22:20–24) . In Gn 24:10 we read of ‘the city of Nahor i.e. Haran, where Rehekah was found. Laban, in making a covenant with Jacob, swears by the ‘God (of Abraham and the God of Nahor’ (Gn 31:53). The sons ascribed to Nahor (Buz, Uz, Aram, etc.) are for the most part names of tribes. It has been questioner if Nahor is a historical character at all. Some think we have, instead, the name of a lost tribe once resident in the neighbourhood of Haran, from which the Aramæar tribes were descended. While Abraham appears as the common ancestor of the Israelites and Edomites, Nahor is represented as the father of the Aramæans.

W. F. BOYD.

NAHSHON.—Brother-in-law of Aaron (Ex 6:23) descendant in the 5th generation from Judah (1 Ch 2:10f.) and prince of the tribe of Judah (Nu 1:7, 2:3, 7:12, 17, 10:14) mentioned as one of the ancestors of David (Ru 4:20, 1 Ct 2:10f.), and of Christ (Mt 1:4, Lk 3:32).

NAHUM

I. THE MAN.—The word Nahum means ‘full of comfort’ and is probably a contraction of e longer Heb. term meaning ‘God is a comforter.’ Of the man so named nothing is certainly known. He is called’ the Elkoshite,’ but the exact meaning of the term cannot at present be determined. It is made in the Targum a kind of patronymic, recording the assumed descent of the prophet from an unknown ancestor Koshi It is more likely to preserve the name of the prophet’s birthplace or place of residence, of which the identification is still lacking. Three or four conjectures have been made.

(1) The prophet’s tomb is shown at Elkosh, 24 miles to the N. of Nineveh; and accordingly he is said to have lived there, a descendant of a member of the ten tribes who was deported in B.C. 721. But the tradition that buries Nahum there is not met with before the 16th cent., and is sufficiently accounted for by the interest in the city shewn by the prophet.

(2) Capernaum is really a transliteration of Heb. words which mean ‘village of Nahum.’ But a Galilæn origin for our prophet is unlikely (Jn 7:52), and is not supported by any allusions in the prophecy.

(3) The same objection applies to Jerome’s identification of Elkosh with a village Elkozeh in N. Galilee, which on other grounds is precarious.

(4) The most probable tradition associates Nahum with Elkosh ‘of the tribe of Simeon,’ and locates the hamlet near Beth-Gabre, the modern Beit-Jibrîn, about half-way between Jerusalem and Gaza. The tradition occurs in a Syriac version of the biographies of the prophets, ascribed to Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus towards the close of the 4th cent., but probably of much later date.

II. THE BOOK

1. Analysis of contents.—In the analysis of the book, a line of division can be best drawn at the close of 2:2. The latter section is the actual prophecy or oracle. It is preceded by a psalm or proem consisting of two parts, of which the one is general in its assertion of God’s universal judgment, the other particular in its specific messages to Judah and to Assyria. Jehovah as the jealous Avenger is the opening theme. This fact holds good of His administration (1:3); and as He passes on to the overthrow of the wicked, physical proofs of His power become evident everywhere (1:4–6) . Tenderness towards those who wait upon Him, but an overwhelming flood upon His enemies (1:7–10) , are the two great characteristics of His rule. ‘What think ye of Jehovah?’ (1:9, where RV does not preserve the sequence of thought) is the point of passage to the section dealing with His particular acts, in which section either the text is corrupt through the displacement of some of the verses, or the two messages, of deliverance to Judah (1:13, 15, 2:2) and of vengeance upon Israel (1:11f., 14, 2:1, were meaot to be entangled in repeated antitheses.

Already the bearer of the good news is speeding over the hills (1:15; cf. Is 52:7, Ro 10:15).

The oracle proper consists also of two sections, corresponding with the division into chapters. The second chapter is a swift and vivid description of the siege of Nineveh, its capture and sack, with the complete desolation that followed.

A second oracle is contained in the third chapter, which there is no need to regard as compacted of several prophecies, but of which the unity in theme and sequence of thought is conspicuous. The mention of the city of blood, full of lies and rapine, is followed by one of the most vivid battle-pictures in Heb. literature (3:2f.). The cause of destruction is to be found in the diplomatic barlotry, whereby nations and races had been lured and sold; and so richly merited will be the woe, that none will be left or disposed to pity or bemoan Nineveh (3:7). The analogy of No-amon (Thebes) makes it certain that a similar fate is awaiting the Assyrian city (3:8ff.). Her outposts and defences are already falling before the invader, just as the first-ripe figs fall at the mere shaking of a fig-tree; and her people have become women (3:12f.). The time to prepare for the siege is past, adds the prophet, with his sarcastic appeal, ‘Tread the mortar, lay hold of the brick-mould.’ The swarming merchants, the ‘crowned ones’ (floating foreign population, according to Wellhausen; more probably the princes and prosperous men, cf. Is 10:8), the ‘marshals’ or high officials, are like locusts or grasshoppers, that camp in the hedges and walls, but vanish with the sunrise. Finally, the prophet addresses the king himself, and on the eve of the destruction of the city proclaims her disappearance from history amidst the joy of all who had suffered under her tyranny: ‘There is no assuaging of thy hurt … all that hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee.’

2. Authenticity of the first chapter.—That Nahum was the author of the two oracles is hardly open to question, but of late years some doubt has been thrown upon the authenticity of the prologue. Against Nahum’s authorship the plea is of a technical character, that the first chapter is really, in Heb., an alphabetic poem, and that its right metrical division yields, with a few alterations and transpositions, a series of stanzas, of which the first words commence with the letters of the Heb. alphabet in order. This plea is followed by the statement that such a literary form points to a late origin; and consequently the prologue is held to have been composed or constructed in the post-exilic period, and prefixed as an appropriate Introduction to the oracle of Nahum on account of its expression of the general principle of God’s avenging justice, of which the drama of Nineveh was supposed to afford a striking illustration.

On the other side, the re-arrangements necessary to restore an alphabetical form are difficult, though perhaps possible as far as 1:9, after which resort has to be had to processes that are scientifically indefensible. The order of the verses and of the words within the verses has to be altered, words are omitted or introduced with freedom, and on the whole A. B. Davidson’s verdict stands—that the attempt to restore the alphabetical form ‘can never be more than an academical exercise.’

Even if an alphabetical form be conceded, a necessary lateness of date cannot be successfully inferred. Instances of the use of such a form occur, e.g., in Pss 9:10, where the tone and teaching are distinctly pre-exilic; and history would allow of the appearance of such a form, or at least of tentative efforts at its construction, at a comparatively early period in the development of a literature. The language and atmosphere of the prologue are those of the succeeding oracles. Alleged parallels with the post-exilic psalms are in reality parallels with earlier writings, which possibly supplied both Nahum and the writers of the psalms in question with their common phrases. Vividness and force, severity towards sin, fervent confidence in God, are features of all three chapters, which are further knit together by their theme, the first setting up God’s throne of judgment and announcing His sentence on Nineveh, the others portraying the execution of that sentence. And the attempts to destroy the unity of the book, able as they have been and full of valuable contributions to its exegesis and to Biblical science generally, must be regarded as having so far failed.

3. Date.—The question of the authenticity of the first chapter does not seriously affect the further question of the date at which Nahum composed the two oracles by general consent ascribed to him. Two points may be fixed at once; and in the period between them the actual date must be found. Nahum prophesied after the capture of No-amon or Thebes (3:8–10) by Ashurbanipal in B.C. 664–663, but before the fall of Nineveh in B.C. 606. The interval, within which the exact date must be sought, may be shortened with great probability. Ashurbanipal’s brilliant reign terminated in B.C. 626, and before that date there cannot be said to have been any great decline in the strength of Assyria. The Medes and the Scythians were beginning to threaten the empire, but its most serious difficulties arose from dynastic rivalries and the revolt of Ashurbanipal’s brother. Had that revolt been the occasion of Nahum’s prophecy, he would have directed his words against the king in person and not against the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal the Medes rapidly grew in strength, and laid siege to Nineveh, but were called away by an invasion of their own country; and the city was spared for nearly twenty years. The right date for Nahum seems to be a little after the death of Ashurbanipal, when the signs of Assyrian weakness were multiplying, and the outlying parts of the empire had already recovered their independence or been appropriated by other powers. At a later date the language of a prophet in Judah would be likely to be affected by the Deuteronomic style, of which there are no traces in Nahum; an earlier date would fail to supply the historic conditions, which are always an essential feature of Jewish prophecy. About 623 or 624 Nahum would need no great discernment to see the approaching fall of Assyria, and in the equipment and quick movements of the Medes and Scythians he would find the imagery which he uses to such good effect in his oracles.

4. Literary character and religious value.—Picturesqueness and force have been described as the most prominent characteristics of Nahum’s poety. Compact thought, vivid description (2:3–5 , 3:2f.), effective imagery (2:11f., 3:17f.) separate him sufficiently from the prophets of the Chaldæan period, and give him a position not far behind that of Isaiah. Obscurity is sometimes met with (e.g. 1:10, 2:8) , but the cause is probably quite as often the high specific gravity of the sentence as an error in transcription. Findlay says (Books of the Prophets, II. 191) that Nahum is neglected by the Bible-reader, as though the story of Nineveh had little connexion with the progress of the Kingdom of God, and were merely a complete and isolated fact of the past with no relation to present needs. Yet if Nahum is not a religious teacher like Micah or Isaiah, he focuses the truth of God’s moral government of the world, concentrating the light upon a single typical instance; and he does not fail to defend confidence in God as the eventual Avenger of wrong and the perpetual defence of those who love Him. Where he differs chiefly from the other prophets is in the complete outwardness of his gaze. He has no eye for the shortcoming or sin of Judah, and no revelation to make of the inner history or moral character of his own generation. In this respect he contrasts especially with his contemporary Zephaniah, who also looked for the collapse of the Assyrian kingdom, but saw clearly a similar fate about to overtake the sinners of Israel. For Nahum, Nineveh fills up the whole canvas. The prophecy is a stern song of war, a shout of triumph over the conquered and slain; and though thereby it stands in contrast with the kindlier temper and spirit of the NT, in which no citation from the book occurs, it accords well with the traditions of its own age. And its great lesson, from which attention is not allowed to be diverted, is that the mills of God grind ‘exceeding small,’ and for nations as for individuals ‘sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death’ (Ja 1:15).

R. W. MOSS.

NAIDUS (1 Es 9:31) apparently = Benaiah, Ezr 10:30.

NAIL.—1. Among the ancient Arabs it was the custom for a widow to allow her nails to grow during her term of mourning. To pare them was a formal indication that this period was at an end. From Dt 21:12 and 2 S 19:24 (LXX) it may be inferred that such was also the custom among the Hebrews. The former passage, however, refers only to the case of a foreign captive whom a Hebrew might take to wife after a month’s seclusion, during which the care of the person was neglected in token of mourning for the captive’s condition. The latter passage in its better Gr. form (see Cent. Bible, in loc.) tells us that Mephibosheth showed his sympathy with David by, inter alia, omitting to trim his ‘toe-nails and his finger-nails’ during the latter’s absence from Jerusalem.

2. The Heb. word most frequently rendered ‘nail’ is properly a tent-peg, or, as Jg 4:21 RV, tent-pin. This is also the better rendering in Zec 10:4, where it is synonymous with ‘cornerstone,’ both terms signifying the princes or leading men of the State as its supports. The figure of Is 22:23, 25, on the other hand, is derived from the custom of driving a nail into the house-wall upon which to hang (v. 22) domestic utensils or the like.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

NAIN.—The town where Jesus raised the widow’s son to life (Lk 7:11) . The name is found in the modern Nein, a small, squalid village, 6 miles S.E. of Nazareth, on the N. slope of the Hill of Moreh, the so-called ‘Little Hermon.’ The summit of the hill is 1690 feet high, with a whitedomed sanctuary, the tomb of the saint from whom the mountain takes its modern name, Jebel ed-Duhy. The village is 744 feet above the sea. Sir W. M. Ramsay thinks ‘there can be little doubt that the ancient city was on the top’ of the hill (The Education of Christ, Preface, ix), but the evidence is not stated. The present village is insignificant. Ruins stretch to the north, showing that the place was once of some importance; but they are comparatively modern. The rock-cut tombs to the East, however, bespeak a much higher antiquity. The small sanctuary, Maqām Sīdna ‘Isa, ‘Place of our Lord Jesus,’ on the north, doubtless commemorates the visit of the Saviour.

There is no trace of city walls. Tristram was misled by the shape of the ruins (Land of Israel, 125). ‘The Gate’ was probably the usual entrance from that direction. The site commands an interesting view. Across a narrow bay of Esdraelon rises Mt. Tabor, over the eastern shoulder of which the white summit of Hermon is visible; while to the N.W. and W. the eye ranges over the hills of Lower Galilee, and the rolling breadths of the great plain, to Mt. Carmel by the sea.

W. EWING.

NAIOTH.—A place ‘in Ramah,’ where was a ‘company of the prophets.’ Here David fled to Samuel after Saul had attacked him with a javelin; hither Saul pursued him, and was seized with an ecstatic fit of some kind (1 S 19:18–24) . Nothing is known of the situation of the place. It is not even absolutely certain that Naioth is a proper name; but opinions differ respecting its possible meaning.

R. A. S. MACALISTER.

NAME, NAMES

1. The names of God.—See GOD, p. 299 f.

2. Personal names.—From the earliest times the name given to a child was supposed to indicate some characteristic of the person; of the circumstances, trivial or momentous, connected with his or her birth; of the hopes, beliefs, or feelings of the parents. This is evident from the etymologies (Gn 21:3, 6, 27:36, Ex 2:10, 1 S 4:21, 25:25 etc.), not always reliable, but testifying to the impression that name and facts should correspond. There are many indications of the persistence of this idea. For instance, there is the frequency of names denoting personal qualities, Adin, Amasai, Jaddua, Korah, Solomon, etc.; or pointing to occupations, Asa, Sophereth, etc. Again, an Isaiah (7:3, 8:3) or a Hosea (2:4, 8, 9) is quite ready to bestow symbolical names on his children; a Jeremiah (20:3) predicts the change from Pashhur to Magor-missabib, because the latter will more accurately correspond to the surroundings; and the same prophet sums up all his hopes for the future in the title which he bestows on the Messianic King and the holy city (23:6 , 33:16; cf. Rev 19:13). The new name promised to the faithful (Rev 2:17) corresponds to the fresh glory bestowed on him, which differs in each recipient and is known only to himself ( Rev 14:1).

Analogous convictions prevailed among other Eastern nations. Nomen et omen was an influential conception. When a man was wanted to milk a camel, Mohammed disqualified one applicant after another till a man came whose name meant ‘Long Life’; if one of his converts was called ‘Rough,’ he called him ‘Smooth’; he was even guided in his strategy by the names of the places en route (Margoliouth, Mohammed, p. 61 f.).

Generally the name was fixed immediately alter birth, as it still is with the Arabs. The mother usually exercised this privilege (Gn 4:25, 19:37f., 29:32ff., 30:6ff., 18ff., 35:18, 1 S 1:20, 4:21, Is 7:14), sometimes the father (Gn 4:26, 16:15, 17:19, 21:3, Ex 2:22, 2 S 12:24, Hos 1:4ff.), occasionally other interested persons (Ru 4:17, Lk 1:57–68) . Some names were bestowed indifferently on men and women: Abiah, (1 K 14:31, 1 Ch 2:24); Abihail ( Nu 3:25, 1 Ch 2:29); Zibiah (2 K 12:2, 1 Ch 8:9).

Beginning at a fairly early date, there are a moderate number of names derived from the vegetable world: Elah (‘terebinth’), Zuph (‘sedge’), Tamar (‘palm-tree’), etc. The majority, however, belong to more recent documents: Asnah (‘bramble’), Coz (‘thorn’), Hadassah (‘myrtle’), Susannah (‘lily’), Shamir ( ‘thorn’), etc. Other natural objects are also drawn upon : Geshem (‘rain’), Barak (‘lightning’), etc.; curiously enough, Jorah (‘autumn-rain,’ Ezr 2:16) is identical with Hariph (‘autumn,’ Neh 7:24). A few, of peculiarly difficult interpretation, point to family relationships: Ahab = ‘father’s brother,’ but the question is whether it signifies ‘uncle’ or whether it is an indication that the child closely resembles his father or is to be as a brother to him. Ahban = ‘brother is son,’ Ahiam = ‘a maternal uncle,’ belong to this class. But Moses, if, as is most probable, of Egyptian origin and signifying ‘son,’ is a shortened form of a theophorous name; cf. MOSES, ad init.

Names which have a religious import are more characteristic of the Semite races than of ours, and this is especially true of the Israelites all through their national life. A certain number of those found in the OT have heathen associations: Anath (transferred to a man from a well-known goddess worshipped in Syria, etc.), Ahishahar (‘Shahar [i.e. ‘Dawn’] is brother’), Baal (1 Ch 5:5, 8:30), Bildad (Job 2:11), Balaam, Obed-edom (‘servant of [the god] Edom’), Reu and Reuel ( Gn

11:18, Ex 2:18). Among the earliest clan names are those of animals: Rachel (‘ewe’), Hamor

(‘ass’), Caleb (‘dog’), etc. This may well be a survival from a pre-historic age of totemism. In

David’s day we find individuals, possibly members of such clans, called Eglah (‘calf’), Laish (‘lion’), Bichri (from becher, ‘a young camel’). And the curious recrudescence of words of this class in and about the reign of Josiah (Huldah, ‘weasel,’ Shaphan, ‘rock-badger,’ etc.), might be accounted for on the supposition that animal-worship had considerable vogue during that age of religious syncretism (cf. Ezk 8:10–12). Names like Hezir (‘swine’), Achbor (‘mouse’), Parosh (‘flea’) favour this explanation. At the same time, it must be admitted that animal-names were in many instances bestowed as terms of endearment, or as expressions of a wish that the child might have swiftness, strength, gracefulness, or whatever might be the creature’s peculiar quality.

There is an important class of compounds in which relationship—originally conceived as physical—with the god of the nation or clan is asserted: Ammiel (‘kinsman is El’), Abijah (‘father is Jah’), Ahijah ( ‘brother is Jah’). These compounds ceased to be formed long before the Exile, owing, no doubt, to the sense that they infringed on the Divine dignity. Others now appear, containing an element which referred to the Divine sovereignty: Adonijah ( ‘Jah is lord,’ like the Phœn. Adoneshmun, ‘Eshmun is lord’), Malchiah (‘Jah is king’), Baaliah (‘Jah is baal’ [or ‘lord’]). Turning now to the two great groups in which El or Jahweh forms part of the name, it is to be noted that the former had the first run of popularity. From David until after the Exile, Jah, Je, or Jeho is more common. From the 7th cent. B.C. onwards El is seen to be recovering its ground. Altogether there are 135 names in El, and, according to Gray (HPN, p. 163), 157 in one of the abbreviations of Jahweh [Jastrow (ZATW XVI. p. 2) has sought to reduce the latter number to about 80]. Abbreviations of both these classes are fairly common: Abi, for Abijah; Palti, for Paltiel; Nathan, for Jonathan or Nathanael, etc. The nations which were related to the Hebrews acknowledged or invoked their gods in the same fashion: Babylonian and Assyrian proper names containing the elements, Bel, Asshur, Nebo, Merodach, etc.; Phœnician having Ashtoreth, Bel, Eshmun, Melech, etc.; Aramaic Hadad, Rimmon, etc.; Palmyrene, Sabæan, and Nabatæan exhihit the same features.

Special mention ought perhaps to be made of the curious words found in the Books of

Chronicles. Ewald observes that they remind us of the nomenclature affected by the English

Puritans of the 17th century. They were meant to express the religious sentiments of the Chronicler and those like-minded. Thus we have Jushab-hesed (‘kindness is requited’), Tobadonijah (‘good is the Lord Jahweh’), Elioenai (‘to Jahweh are mine eyes’), Hazzelelponi ( ‘Give shade, Thou who turnest to me’; cf. the Assyr. Pān-Bēl-adagal [‘I look to Bel’] and Pān-Asshūrlāmur [ ‘I will look to Asshur’]). But the climax is reached in 1 Ch 25:4, where, with very slight alteration, the list which begins with Hananiah reads, ‘Be gracious unto me, Jahweh! Be gracious unto me! Thou art my God! Thou hast given great and exalted help to him who sat in hardship. Thou hast given judgments in multitudes and abundance.’ These phenomena differ from the Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz of Isaiah, in that the latter were formed for the express purpose of symbolical prediction. We have, however, something resembling them in other late documents. P gives us Bezalel (‘in the shadow of God’; cf. Bab. Ina-silli-Bēl, ‘under the protection of Bel’), Ex 31:2, and Lael (‘to God’; cf. Bab. Sha-Bēl-at-ta, ‘thou belongest to Bel’), Nu 3:24. And Neh 3:6 has Besodeiah ( ‘in the counsel of God’ ).

From about the close of the 4th cent. B.C. it was a common practice to call children after their relatives (Lk 1:59–61). When we read such a list as this: Hillel, Simon, Gamaliel, Simon, Gamaliel, Simon, Judah, Gamaliel, Judah, we get the impression that the grandfather’s name was more often adopted than the father’s (cf. To 1:9, Lk 1:59; Jos. Ant. XIV. i. 3, BJ V. xi i. 21). To the same period belong the Aramaic names Martha, Tabitha, Meshezabel (Bab. Mushizibilu), and those with the prefix bar, of which we have many examples in the NT. Foreign names abound in Josephus, the Apocrypha, and the NT. In some instances a person has two separate designations: Alcimus, Jacimus; John, Gaddis; Diodotus, Tryphon, etc. ‘Saul, who is called Paul’ ( Ac 13:9), is a typical case. In some of the examples the reason for the second choice is obscure; in others there is an obvious similarity of sound or meaning. Double names were now frequent: Judas Maccabœus, Simon Zelotes, etc. Non-Jewish names were substituted for Jewish: Jason for Jesus; Simon for Simeon (Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 315, note).

After the birth of a son an Arab father will adopt an honorific name (kunya) . If he had been called Abdallah, he is henceforth Abu Omar, or the like. There is no trace of this custom in Heb. family life, but the idea of a distinguishing and honourable surname is not altogether wanting; see Is 44:5, 45:4, Job 32:21, and some of the familiar double names. It is also possible that the

Heb. original of Sir 44:23 signified ‘I gave him the surname Birthright.’ And the sense of Sir

47:6 is ‘They gave him the surname The Ten Thousand.’

3. Place Names.—The majority of these were no doubt fixed by the tribes whom the

Hebrews dispossessed. From their great antiquity and the alterations to which they have been subjected, it is sometimes impossible to determine the meaning. Many places, however, got their designation from a salient natural feature, a well (beer), a fountain (en, in En-gedi) , a meadow (abel), a vineyard (karmel), woods (jearim), in Kirath-jearim), a hill (Gibeah, Gibeon, Ramah) , trees (Bethphage, Bethtappuah, Anab, Abel-hasshittim, Elah, Allon-bacuth) ; from some circumstance belonging to the history or legends of the locality, an encampment (Mahanaim) , a watch-tower (Migdal, Megiddo, Mizpah), a village (Hazer), a temporary abode of shepherds (Succoth), a place of refuge (Adullam), a vision (Bcer-lahai-roi) ; from the clan which dwelt there (Samaria). Of the fifty-three names of animals in Gray’s list (pp. 88–96), twenty-four are applied to towns or districts. On the totem-theory this would mean that the clan bestowed the name of its totem-animal on the place of its abode. Other names evidently imply the existence of local sanctuaries, some of which must have been pre-Israelite: Beth-anath, Anathoth, Bethel, Gilgal, Kedesh-naphtali, Migdal-el, Migdal-gad, Neiel, Penuel, Beth-shemesh. Almost all the compounds with Baal belong to this class: Baal-beer, Bamoth-baal, B.-dagon, B.-hamon, B.hazor, B.-meon, B.-perazim, B.-sha isha, B.-tamar. One, Baal-judah ( the correct reading of 2 S 6:2; cf. 1 Ch 13:6), is clearly of Heb. origin, Baal here being a name for Jahweh. Special interest attaches to the names of two clans in the S. and centre of Palestine, Jacob-el and Joseph-el, mentioned by Thothmes III. (c. 1500 B.C.) in his inscription at Thebes. Corresponding with these forms are Israel, Ishmael, Jezreel, Jabneel, Jiphthah-el, Jekabzeel, Joktheel, in the OT. The el of the termination was the local deity, invoked (Gray, p. 214 ff.), or declared to have conferred some boon on his worshippers (Meyer, ZATW, 1886, p. 5).

J. TAYLOR.

NANÆA (2 Mac 1:13, 16).—A goddess worshipped in Syria, Persia, Armenia, and other parts of Asia. By the Greeks this goddess was identified sometimes with Artemis, sometimes with Aphrodite. She seems to have represented the productive powers of nature. In 2 Mac 1:10– 17 we have a legendary account of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is said to have attempted to plunder a temple of Nanæa in Persia, and to have been treacherously killed in the temple by the priests.

NAOMI.—The wife of Elimelech the Ephrathite, of Beth-lehem-judah, who was driven by famine into the land of Moab. After the death of her husband and her two sons, she returned, accompanied by Ruth, to her own land. Her return was a matter of surprise to the people of Bethlehem, and they said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ Her answer included a double play of words on her own name, ‘Call me not Naomi (‘pleasant’), call me Mara (‘bitter’): for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me … why call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified (’ānāh) against me?’ (Ru 1:2–21).

NAPHISH.—A son of Ishmael (Gn 25:15 = 1 Ch 1:31). In all probability it is his descendants who are mentioned in Ezr 2:50 as ‘the children of Nephisim’ (RV) or Nephusim (AV and RVm). In the parallel passage (Neh 7:52) the reading is Nephushesim ( RV) or Nephishesim (AV and RVm). The reading in 1 Es 5:31 is Nephisi.

NAPHISI (1 Es 5:31) = Nephisim, Ezr 2:50; Nephushesim, Neh 7:52.

NAPHTALI.—The second son of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, and the sixth son of Jacob

( Gn 30:7f. [J]). The tradition connects the story in a vague way with the word ‘twist, wrestle’ :

Naphtūtē ’elōhīm niphtalti—Wrestlings of God (or mighty wrestlings)—‘I have wrestled with my sister and I have prevailed,’ Rachel exclaimed when Naphtali was born, ‘and she called his name Naphtali.’

The information which we have of Naphtali is very meagre. P ascribes to him four sons when Jacob and his family entered Egypt (Gn 46:24). These four have developed into ‘families’ at the time of the Exodus, and their numher is given as 53,400 in the Sinai census (Nu 1:42). At Moab, however, they had decreased to 45,000 (26:48). None of these clan-names given here, except Guni, appears again outside of the genealogy repeated in 1 Ch 7:13. In the march through the desert Naphtali formed with Dan and Asher the ‘Camp of Dan,’ which constituted a total of 157,000 men of war.

While the genealogical lists cannot he relied on, there is no apparent reason for linking together Dan and Naphtali. But that they are both traced to Bilhah indicates that they were tribes of minor importance, inferior in strength, and of less consequence in the national development at the time when these relationships were created, than the tribes which sprang from Rachel.

Naphtali was the sixth in order to receive its lot (Jos 19:32–39) . It is somewhat more definitely defined than the others, though few of the places mentioned can be identified. No fewer than nineteen cities are said to lie within its territory, the most of which are not found again in the OT, doubtless because the history of Israel was wrought out mainly in the regions to the south. The territory reached on the north almost to the Lebanon. Southward it extended along the Jordan until it reached the point below the Sea of Galilee where the Wady el-Bireh joins the Jordan. The greater part lay to the north-west of the Sea, and in this direction (N. and W.) its boundaries appear to have been shifting. ‘Ancient and modern writers’ (writes Driver, Deut. 413) ‘vie with one another in praising the soil and climate of the territory owned by Naphtali: it was abundantly irrigated; and its productions rich and varied. Lower Galilee was, however, yet more fertile and beautiful than Upper Galilee. The vegetation in the neighbourhood of the lake is semitropical.’ Modern writers join with Josephus in praising it, and Neubauer (Géog. du Talm. p. 180) quotes a saying from the Talmud: ‘It is easier to raise a legion of olives in Galilee than to bring up a child in Palestine.’ No wonder that Naphtali was ‘like a hind let loose’ (Gn 49:21, if this be the correct translation; see the Comm.). Besides these advantages, it was fortunate in location in times of peace. Roads ran in every direction, connecting it with the outer world.

The heroism and warlike daring of the tribe is sung in Jg 5. In that decisive struggle with the Canaanitcs the tribe wrote its name high on the roll of Israelitish fame. But this was in the days of its pristine vigour. At a later period it performed nothing worthy of record. The Blessings of

Jacob (Gn 49:21) and of Moses (Dt 33:23, ‘Satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of

Jahweh’) dwell only upon its productivity. The captain to whom the honour of leading the

Israelites to victory over the hosts of Sisera is ascribed in the prose narrative, Jg 4, was Barak of Kedesn-naphtali. This is probable in view of the readiness with which Naphtali and Zehulun its neighbour responded to his call, though Jg 5:15 points rather to a connexion with Issachar. According to 1 K 7:14, Hiram, the worker in metals, etc., whom Solomon brought from Tyre to work on the house of Jahweh, was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali [2 Ch 2:14, it is true, says she was of Dan. The shifting of boundaries may be the cause of the divergence]. Few names of prominence, however, from members of this tribe appear in connexion with the national life.

According to the Chronicler (1 Ch 12:34) 37,000 warriors with 1000 captains went to the support of David at Hebron. Under the Syrian king Bir-idri (Benhadad), ‘all the land of Naphtali,’ together with certain cities of Israel, were smitten with the sword (1 K 15:20) . When the Syrian kingdom fell before the Assyrian armies, northern Israel was exposed, as never before, to the relentless legions of the East; and ‘in the days of Pekah, king of Israel, came Tiglath-pileser [III. B.C. 734], king of Assyria, and took l jon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali, and he carried them captive to Assyria’ (2 K 15:29). See also TRIBES.

JAMES A. CRAIG.

NAPHTUHIM.—Fourth son of Mizraim (Gn 10:13, 1 Ch 1:11) . Many suggestions have been made to account for the name, which does not appear exactly in Egyptian or Assyrian inscriptions, but in Ashurhanipal’s Annals (col. 1. 94, 99) a district Nathu, probably in Lower Egypt, occurs, which may be the same. An Egyptian n-idhw, ‘the marshes,’ used in contrast to Pathros, may be intended; but the discovery of Caphtor, so long a puzzle, may warn us to wait for further evidence.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NAPKIN (soudarion).—The cloth in which the unprofitable servant wrapped the money of his lord (Lk 19:20); used to bind the face of the dead (Jn 11:44, 20:7); carried, possibly as indicated by the name (Lat. sudarium) , to wipe off perspiration (Ac 19:12). The Arabic renders mandīl, which may be either ‘towel,’ ‘napkin,’ ‘veil,’ or ‘head-band.’ See also DRESS, §§ 5 (a) , 8.

W. EWING.

NARCISSUS.—St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (ch. 16:11) salutes, among others, ‘them that he of the household of Narcissus that are in the Lord.’ The name was not uncommon, but many have identified the person mentioned here with the secretary of the Emperor Claudius, who was put to death by Agrippina in the first year of Nero’s reign, about three years before this Epistle was written. According to the custom of those times, the household of the freedman of Claudius would pass into the possession of Nero, retaining the name of their deceased owner. It will be noted that the salutation is not addressed to Narcissus himself, but to the members of his household.

MORLEY STEVENSON.

NASBAS.—Apparently the nephew of Achiacharus, who was the nephew of Tobit (To 11:18) . He came with Achiacharus to the wedding of Tobias. About his identity there is some little uncertainty. The Vulgate speaks of him as brother of Achiacharus, while others have regarded the two as identical. It has been suggested also that he is the same as Aman or Nadan, the ward of Achiacharus (To 14:10), in which case the uncle adopted the nephew and brought him up as his son.

T. A. MOXON.

NASI (1 Es 5:32) = Neziah, Ezr 2:54, Neh 7:58.

NATHAN.—1. Third son of David by Bath-sheba (2 S 5:14, but note 2 S 12:24). In Zec

12:12 the Nathan who is recognized as head of a house is probably David’s son. In Lk 3:31 the genealogy of Jesus is traced through Nathan to David. 2. The prophet, a confidential adviser of David. The king desired to build the Temple, and Nathan at first agreed, but later received a revelation forbidding the enterprise (2 S 7). The next appearance of Nathan is in connexion with the parable of the ewe lamb, by which David was self-convicted of his sin with Bath-sheba (2 S 12:1–15) . Later, in token that an atonement has been made, he adds to Solomon’s name the significant title Jedidiah (‘beloved of Jah’) . The third service was rendered alike to David and to Solomon. Adonijab had planned a coup by which to grasp the sceptre, now falling from the hands of his aged father. It was Nathan’s watchfulness that discovered the plot, and his ingenuity that saved the kingdom for Solomon (1 K 1). It was fitting that a Life of David should come from this friendly hand (1 Ch 29:29). His service to Solomon was recognized by the king, who appointed his sons, Azariab and Zabud, to important offices (1 K 4:5). 3. Father of Igal, one of David’s heroes (2 S 23:36). The text of 1 Ch 11:38 reads, ‘Joel brother of Nathan.’ 4. One of the cbief men who returned with Ezra (Ezr 8:15, 1 Es 8:44). 5. One of the Bani family, who had taken strange wives (Ezr 10:39); called in 1 Es 9:34 Nathanias. 6. A Judahite (I Ch 2:36).

J. H. STEVENSON.

NATHANAEL.—1. 1 Es 1:8 = 2 Ch 35:9 Nethanel. 2. 1 Es 9:22 = Ezr 10:22 Nethanel. 3. An ancestor of Judith (Jth 8:1). 4. Nathanael of Cana in Galilee (Jn 21:2) appears twice in the Fourth Gospel. (1) When told by Philip, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,’ Nathanael hesitated. ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ he asked. Philip thereupon conducted him to meet Jesus, and, when he looked on that wondrous face, his doubt vanished, and he hailed Him as the Messiah, ‘the Son of God, the King of Israel.’ See Jn 1:43–51. (2) Nathanael was one of the seven to whom the risen Lord manifested Himself at the Lake of Galilee (Jn 21:2). His name occurs only in Jn. but the following are reasons for believing that he was identical with Bartholomew, who is never mentioned by St. John, and by the other Evangelists only in their catalogues of the Apostles (Mt 10:3 = Mk 3:18 = Lk 6:14). (a) Bartholomew is not a name, but a patronymic—Bar Talmai, ‘the son of Talmai.’ (b) Nathanael appears in St. John’s narrative as a friend of Philip, and

Bartholomew is coupled with Philip in the lists of the Apostles. (c) Since the others of the seven at the Lake whose names are indicated by St. John were Apostles, it is probable that Nathanael also was an Apostle. His title would thus be Nathanael har Talmai.

DAVID SMITH.

NATHANIAS (1 Es 9:34) = Nathan, Ezr 10:39.

NATHAN-MELECH.—An official in the reign of Josiah, whose name is used to designate one of the halls or chambers of the Temple (2 K 23:11).

NATIONS.—In many places where in the AV we have ‘Gentiles’ and ‘heathen’ the RV bas rightly substituted ‘nations,’ and it might with advantage have carried out the change consistently.

The Heb. (goi) and Greek (ethnos) words denote invariably a nation or a people, never a person. Where in the AV (only NT) we find ‘Gentile’ in the singular (Ro 2:9f.) the RV has ‘Greek,’ following the original. In nearly every example the singular ‘nation’ stands for ‘Israel,’ though we have a few exceptions, as in Ex 9:24 (of Egypt), Pr 14:34 (general), and Mt 21:43. It is often applied to Israel and Judah when there is an implication of disobedience to God, sinfulness and the like: see Dt 32:28, Jg 2:10,

Is 1:4 etc. This shade of meaning became very common in the later writings of the OT. Quite early in Israelitish history the singular as a term for Israel was discarded for the word translated ‘people’ (‘am) , so that ‘am (‘people’) and goi (‘nation’) came to be almost antithetic terms = ‘Israelites’ and ‘non-Israelites,’ as in Rabbinical Hebrew. For the reason of the change in the use of goi ( ‘nation’), see below.

In the AV ‘Gentiles’ often corresponds to ‘Greeks’ in the original, as in Jn 7:35, Ro 3:9 etc. In the RV the word ‘Greeks’ is rightly substituted, though the sense is the same, for to the Jews of the time Greek culture and religion stood for the culture and religion of the non-Jewish world.

The two words (Heb. and Greek) translated ‘nation’ have their original and literal sense in many parts of the OT and NT, as in Gn 10:5, 10 etc., Is 2:4 (= Mic 4:2f.), Job 12:23, 34:20, Ac 17:28 , Gal 3:14. In other passages this general meaning is narrowed so as to embrace the descendants of Abraham, e.g. in Gn 12:2, 18:18, 17:4, 5, 6, 15. But it is the plural that occurs by far the most frequently, standing almost invariably for non-Israelitish nations, generally with the added notion of their being idolatrous and immoral: see Ex 9:24, 34:10, Lv 25:44ff., Nu 14:15, Dt 15:5, 1 K 4:31, Is 11:10, 12 , and often. These are contrasted with Israel ‘the people of Jahweh’ in 2 S 7:22, 1 Ch 17:21 etc.

This contrast between Israel (united or divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah) as

Jahweh’s people, and all the rest of the human race designated ‘nations,’ runs right through the

OT. Such a conception could have arisen only after the Israelites bad developed the consciousness of national unity. At first, even among the Israelites, each nation was thought to be justified in worshipping its deity (see Dt 3:24 , 10:17, 1 K 8:23, Is 19:1 etc.). As long as this idea prevailed there could be no necessary antagonism between Israelites and foreign nations, except that which was national, for the nation’s god was identified with the national interests. But when the belief in Jahweh’s absolute and exclusive claims possessed the mind of Israel, as it began to do in the time of the earliest literary prophets (see Am 9ff., Mic 7:18 etc.), the nations came to be regarded as worshippers of idols (Lv 18:20), and in Ps 9:5 , 15, 17 (cf. Ezk 7:21) ‘nations’ and ‘wicked people’ are, as being identical, put in parallelism. It will be gathered from what has been said, that the hostile feelings with which Israelites regarded other peoples varied at various times. At all periods it would be modified by the laws of hospitality (see art. STRANGER) , by political alliances (cf. Is 7:1ff., and 2 K 16:5ff., Ahaz and Assyria against Israel and Syria), and by the needs of commerce (see Ezk 27:11 [Tyre], 1 K 9:28, 10:11, 22:28 etc.).

The reforms instituted by king Josiah in the Southern Kingdom (2 K 22:1f.), based upon the Deuteronomic law newly found in the Temple, aimed at stamping out all syncretism in religion and establishing the pure religion of Jahweb. This reformation, as also the Rechabite movement ( Jer 35), had a profound influence upon the thoughts and feelings of Jews, widening the gulf between them and alien nations. The teaching of the oldest prophets looked in the same direction (see Am 2:11, 3:15, 5:11, 25, 6:8, 8:5, Hos 2:19, 8:14, 9:10, 10:13, 12:7ff., 14:4, Is 2:6, 10:4, 17:10 , Zeph 1:8, 11, Jer 35:1ff., 37:6f. etc. ).

But the Deuteronomic law (about B.C. 620) made legally obligatory what earlier teachers had inculcated. Israelites were not to marry non-Israelites (Dt 7:3), or to have any except unavoidable dealings with them.

The feeling of national exclusiveness and antipathy was intensified by the captivity in Babylon, when the prophetic and priestly instructors of the exiled Jews taught them that their calamities came upon them on account of their disloyalty to Jahweh and the ordinances of His religion, and because they compromised with idolatrous practices and heathen nations. It was in Babylon that Ezekiel drew up the programme of worship and organization for the nation after the Return, laying stress on the doctrine that Israel was to be a holy people, separated from other nations (see Ezk 40–48). Some time after the Return, Ezra and Nehemiah had to contend with the laxity to which Jews who had remained in the home land and others had yielded; but they were uncompromising, and won the battle for nationalism in religion.

Judaism was in even greater danger of being lost in the world-currents of speculation and religion soon after the time of Alexander the Great. Indeed, but for the brave Maccabæan rising in the earlier half of the 2nd cent. B.C., both the religion and the language of the Jew might, humanly speaking, have perished.

The Apocrypha speaks of the ‘nations’ just as do the later writings of the OT. They are ‘uncircumcised,’ ‘having sold themselves to do evil’ (1 Mac 1:15); they break the Sabbath, offer no sacrifice to Jahweh, eat unclean food and such as has been offered to idols (2 Mac 5:6, 9, 18, 15:1 f. etc. etc. ).

The NT reveals the same attitude towards foreign nations on the part of the Jews (see Ac 10:45 et passim) . In Rabbinical writings Jewish exclusiveness manifested itself even more decisively (see Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, vol. I., esp. ch. xvi.). But, as in the OT a broader spirit shows itself constantly, culminating in the universalism of Christianity, so enlightened and broadminded Jews in all ages have deprecated the fanatical race-hatred which many of their compatriots have displayed.

T. WITTON DAVIES.

NATURAL.—The contrast between ‘natural’ (Gr. psychikos) and ‘spiritual’ (pneumatikos) is drawn out by St. Paul in 1 Co 15:44–46. The natural body is derived from the first Adam, and is our body in so far as it is accommodated to, and limited by, the needs of the animal side of the human nature. In such a sense it is especially true that ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’ (1 Co 2:14). Man derives his spiritual life from union with Christ (‘the last Adam’), but his present body is not adapted to the needs of this spiritual existence; hence the distinction made by St. Paul between the natural body (called the ‘body of death,’ Ro 7:24) and the spiritual body of the resurrection. The transference from the one to the other begins in this life, and the two beings are identical in so far as continuity creates an identity, but otherwise, owing to the operation of the union with Christ, distinct.

T. A. MOXON.

NATURE.—The term ‘nature’ is not used in the OT. nor was the conception current in Hebrew thought, as God alone is seen in all, through all, and over all. The idea came from the word physis from Hellenism. Swine’s flesh is commended for food as a gift of nature in 4 Mac 5:7 . In the NT the term is used in various senses: (1) the forces, laws, and order of the world, including man (Ro 1:26, 11:21, 24, Gal 4:8); (2) the inborn sense of propriety or morality (1 Co 11:14, Ro 2:14); (3) birth or physical origin (Gal 2:15, Ro 2:27); (4) the sum of characteristics of a species or person, human (Ja 3:7), or Divine (2 P 1:4); (5) a condition acquired or inherited ( Eph 2:3, ‘by nature children of wrath’). What is contrary to nature is condemned. While the term is not found or the conception made explicit in the OT, Schultz (OT Theol. ii. 74) finds in the Law ‘the general rule that nothing is to be permitted contrary to the delicate sense of the inviolable proprieties of nature,’ and gives a number of instances (Ex 23:19, 34:26, Lv 22:28, 19:19, Dt 22:9–11 , Lv 10:9, 19:28, 21:5, 22:24, Dt 14:1, 23:2). The beauty and the order of the world are recognized as evidences of Divine wisdom and power (Ps 8:1, 19:1, 33:6, 7, 90:2, 104, 136:6ff., 147, Pr 8:22–30, Job 38, 39); but the sum of created things is not hypostatized and personified apart from God, as in much current modern thinking. God is Creator, Preserver, and Ruler: He makes all (Is 44:24, Am 4:13), and is in all (Ps 139). His immanence is by His Spirit (Gn 1:2). Jesus recognizes God’s bounty and care in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air (Mt 6:26, 28); He uses natural processes to illustrate spiritual, in salt (5:13), seed and soil (13:3–9), and leaven (13:33). The growth of the seed is also used as an illustration by Paul (1 Co 15:37 , 38). There is in the Bible no interest in nature apart from God, and the problem of the relation of God to nature has not yet risen on the horizon of the thought of the writers.

ALFRED E. GARVIE.

NAUGHT.—‘Naught’ is ‘nothing’ (from A.S. na ‘not,’ and wiht ‘a whit or a thing’). Sometimes the spelling became ‘nought’ (perhaps under the influence of ‘ought’). In the earliest editions of AV there is no difference between ‘naught’ and ‘nought’; but in the ed. of 1638 a difference was introduced, ‘naught’ being used in 2 K 2:19, Pr 20:14, because there the meaning is ‘bad’; ‘nought’ everywhere else, but with the meaning ‘worthlessness.’ This distinction was preserved by Scrivener, in his Cambr. Par. Bible, and is found in most modern English Bibles. ‘Naughty,’ however, is simply ‘worthless,’ as Jer 24:2 ‘very naughty figs.’ But

‘naughtiness’ always means ‘wickedness,’ as Pr 11:6 ‘transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness.’

NAVE.—The form in which (possibly by a primitive error in transcription of the Greek) the Heb. name Nun appears in AV of Sir 46:1.

NAVY.—See SHIPS AND BOATS, p. 849^b.

NAZARENE.—A title applied to Christ in Mt 2:23, apparently as a quotation from a phrophecy. Its signification is a matter of controversy. Apart from the primary meaning of the word, ‘an inhabitant of Nazareth,’ there may have been, as is often the case in prophetic quotations, a secondary meaning in allusion to the Heb. word nētser, ‘a branch,’ in which case the reference may have been to the Messianic passage Is 11:1; or possibly the reference may have been to the word nātsar, ‘to save.’ The epithet, applied often in scorn (cf. Jn 1:48), was used of Christ by demoniacs (Mk 1:24, Lk 4:34), by the people generally (Mk 10:47, Lk 18:37), by the soldiers (Jn 18:6–7) , by the servants (Mt 26:71, Mk 14:67), by Pilate (Jn 19:19), as well as by His own followers on various occasions (Lk 24:19 etc.). The attempt to connect the word with ‘Nazirite’ is etymologically impossible, and has no meaning as applied to Jesus Christ.

T. A. MOXON.

NAZARETH (mod. en-Nāsira).—A town in the north border of the Plain of Esdraelon. It was a place of no history (being entirely unmentioned in the OT, Josephus, or the Talmud), no importance, and, possibly, of bad reputation (Jn 1:48). Here, however, lived Mary and Joseph. Hither, before their marriage, was the angel Gabriel sent to announce the coming birth of Christ (Lk 1:26–38), and hither the Holy Family retired after the flight to Egypt (Mt 2:23). The obscure years of Christ’s boyhood were spent here, and in its synagogue He preached the sermon for which He was rejected by His fellow-townsmen (Mt 13:54, Lk 4:28). After this, save as a centre of pilgrimage, Nazareth sank into obscurity. The Crusaders made it a bishopric; it is now the seat of a Turkish lientenant-governor. Many traditional sites are pointed out to pilgrims and tourists, for not one of which, with the possible exception of the ‘Virgin’s Well’ (which, being the only spring known in the neighbourhood, was not improbably that used by the Holy Family), is there any justification.

R. A. S. MACALISTER.

NAZIRITE (AV Nazarite).—The primary meaning of the Heb. verb nāzar is to separate. Hence the nāzīr is ‘the separated,’ ‘consecrated,’ ‘devoted.’ Joseph is ‘the Nazirite,’ i.e., the consecrated prince, among his brethren (Gn 49:26); the nobles of Jerusalem bear the same title ( La 4:7); the untrimmed vine, whose branches recall the long hair of the Nazirite proper, is called ‘thy Nazirite’ (Lv 25:5, 11). But, above all, the name belongs to a class of persons devoted by a special vow to Jahweh (Am 2:11f., Jg 13:5, 16:17, Nu 6, Sir 46:13, 1 Mac 3:49–53) . According to Jg 13 and Nu 6, the details of outward observance covered by the vow were: (1) abstinence from the fruit of the vine, (2) leaving the hair uncut, (3) avoidance of contact with the dead, and (4) of all unclean food.

Opinions differ as to whether the abstinence from wine or the untrimmed hair was the more important. Am 2:11 f. mentions only the former. 1 S 1:11, on the other band, refers only to the latter (the LXX ‘and he shall drink no wine or strong drink’ being an interpolation). If we look outside the OT, we see that among the ancients generally the hair was regarded as so important an outcome of the physical life as to be a fit offering to the deity, and a means of initiating or restoring communion with Him. There is evidence for this from Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and, in recent times, even among the Maoris. This, then, seems to have been the original observance. If Am 2:11f. does not mention it, the reason is that the most attractive temptation was found in the wine. Jg 13:7 states that Samson’s mother was bidden to abstain, but the same is not affirmed of Samson himself; all the stress, in his case, is laid on the hair being untouched ( Jg 16:17). Nu 6:3, 4 puts the abstinence first, but even here the significance of the other point appears in the directions for the ceremonial shaving and oblation of the hair (Nu 6:18). The vine stood for the culture and civilization of Canaan, and was specially associated with the worship of the nature-gods. Hence it was a point of honour with the zealots of Jahweh to turn away from it utterly. The luxury and immorality connected with a more advanced civilization threatened the simplicity of Israel’s life and faith. Martial devotion coalesced with the ascetic spirit to produce such men as Jonadab, son of Rechab, who resembled the Nazirites very closely (2 K 10:15, Jer 35:6f.).

The Nazirite vow was originally a life-long obligation. Young and enthusiastic men were moved by the Spirit of God to take it up, as others were inspired to be prophets, and it was an offence against Him to tempt them to break it (Am 2:11f.). Women were divinely bidden to devote their promised offspring (Jg 13:7). Others prayed for children and promised that they should then be consecrated to this service (1 S 1:11; it is noteworthy that in the Heb. and Syr. of Sir 46:13, Samuel is expressly called a Nazirite). In course of time, however, a great change came over the purpose and spirit of the institution. The vow was now taken to gain some personal end—protection on a journey, deliverance from sickness, etc. Women, too, became Nazirites. And the restrictions were only for a certain period. Nu 6 represents this stage, but the information which it gives needs supplementing. For instance, it fails to prescribe the manner in which the vow should be entered on. The Talmud asserts that this was done in private, and was binding if one simply said, ‘Behold, I am a Nazirite,’ or repeated after another, ‘I also become one’ (Nazir, i. 3, iii. 1, iv. 1). Nu 6 does not determine the length of these temporary vows. Here, again, a rule had to be made, and it was decided that the person himself might fix the period; otherwise, it should be thirty days (Nazir, i. 3, iii. 1; Jos. BJ II. xv. 1). In case of accidental defilement, the Nazirite had to undergo seven days’ purification, cut off his hair on the seventh day and have it buried (Temura, vi. 4), on the eighth day bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, one for a sin-, one for a burnt-offering, as well as a lamb for a guilt-offering, and thus begin the course of his vow afresh (cf. Nazir, iii. 6; Jos. Ant. XX. ii. 5). At the expiration of the time he was brought to the door of the sanctuary, with a he-lamb for a burnt-offering, a ewelamb for a sin-offering, a ram for a peace-offering, ten unleavened cakes and ten unleavened wafers anointed with oil, a meat-offering, and a drink-offering. When the sacrifices had been offered his hair was shaved and he put it in the fire which was under the peace-offering, or under the caldron in which the latter was boiled (Nazir, vi. 8). Then a wave-offering was made, consisting of the sodden shoulder of the ram, a cake, and a wafer. The fat was then salted and burned on the altar, and the breast and the foreleg were eaten by the priests, who also ate the waved cake and the boiled shoulder; the rest of the bread and meat belonged to the offerer (Maimonides, Hilchoth Maase ha-Corbanoth, ix. 9–11). A free-will offering followed (Nu 6:21). In the second Temple there was a chamber in the S.E. corner of the women’s court, where the Nazirites boiled their peace-offerings, cut off their hair and cast it into the caldron.

The following historical notices are of some interest: (1) 1 Mac 3:49–53 enables us to realize the importance which came to be attached to the punctilious performance of every one of the ceremonies. Just before the battle of Emmaus, the Nazirites, being shut out of Jerusalem, could not offer the concluding sacrifices there. Evidently this was regarded as a serious public calamity. (2) The important tractate of the Talmud entitled Berakhoth tells a story of slightly later date than the above, which illustrates the ingenuity which the Rabbis displayed in finding reasons for releasing from their vows persons who had rashly undertaken them (vii. 2). (3) John the Baptist has been claimed as a Nazirite, but this is doubtful; we read nothing about his hair being untouched. (4) A custom grew up for wealthy people to provide the requisite sacrifices for their poorer brethren. Thus, when Agrippa came from Rome to Jerusalem to enter on his kingdom, ‘he offered many sacrifices of thanksgiving; wherefore also he ordered that many of the Nazirites should have their heads shaven’ (Jos. Ant. XIX. vi. 1). This throws light on Ac 21:23–26. (5) Eusebius (HE ii. 23) appears to represent James the Just as a lifelong Nazirite: ‘He was holy from his mother’s womb. Wine and strong drink he drank not, neither did he eat flesh. A razor passed not over his head.’ But the further statement that he alone was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies is so improbable as to lessen our confidence in the narrator.

JOHN TAYLOR.

NEAH.—Named only in Jos 19:13. The name has not been recovered. It is prob. identical with Neiel of v. 27.

NEAPOLIS.—The harbour of Philippi, at which St. Paul landed (Ac 16:11) after sailing from Troas. It lay on the coast of Macedonia opposite Thasos, being situated on a, promontory with a harbour on each side. It was about 10 miles from Philippi. The Via Egnatia from Dyrrhachium, after passing through Thessalonica, Amphipolis, and Philippi, reached the coast again at Neapolis, and the regular course of travellers to Asia was not to continue farther by land, but to cross by ship to Troas. The modern name of Neapolis is Kavalla.

A. E. HILLARD.

NEARIAH.—1. A descendant of David (1 Ch 3:22f.). 2. A Simeonite (1 Ch 4:42).

NEBAIOTH.—An important tribe of North Arabians. In Gn 25:13 (= 1 Ch 1:29) Nebaioth is the eldest son of Ishmael; also the representative of the Ishmaelite tribes in Gn 28:9, 36:3. The people of Nebaioth have an important place among the Arabian tribes subdued by Ashurbanipal of Assyria, named by him along with the people of Kedar ( wh. see), just as in the genealogy of Genesis. It is about this date (B.C. 650) that they come into prominence among the competing tribes of the peninsula—a position which they retained for centuries. Their exact location cannot be definitely determined, but the inscriptions tell us that they were very remote from Assyria, and their place at the head of the tribes of Ishmael, as well as their affiliation with the Edomites (Gn 28 and 36), makes it probable that they were well known to the Hebrews. Hence they are to be sought for not far from the south-eastern borders of Palestine. The time when they flourished agrees with the fact that in the Bible they are mentioned only in the late Priestly Code and by the ‘Third Isaiah’ (Is 60:7). They are usually, but wrongly, identified with the Nabatæans ( the Nabathæans of 1 Mac 5:25, 9:35).

J. F. M‘CURDY.

NEBALLAT.—A town inhabited by Benjamites (Neh 11:34); prob. the modern Beit Nebālā, 3¹/₂miles N.E. of Lydda.

NEBAT.—Father of Jeroboam I. (1 K 11:26 and onwards). The constant designation of Jeroboam I. as ‘ben-Nebat’ is probably the usage of a writer later than Jeroboam ben-Joash. It is intended, doubtless, to distinguish the two kings.

NEBO (Assyr. Nabū, ‘Announcer’).—A Bab. deity who presided over literature and science. The cuneiform system of writing was credited to his invention. He was the son and messenger of Bel-Marduk; whose will to mortals he interpreted. The planet Mercury was sacred to Nebo. The chief centre of his worship was the temple of E-Zida in Borsippa, between which and the temple of Marduk in Babylon took place the great annual processions of which we find a reminiscence in Is 46:1f. The name Neho appears as an element in many Babylonian names—Nehuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan, Abed-nego (properly Abed-nebo), etc.

W. M. NESBIT.

NEBO.—The name of a Moabite town, a mountain in Moab, and (according to the Hebrew text) of a city of Judah. It is probable, though not quite certain, that these places were named after the Babylonian deity Nebo (see preced. art.), and thus point to the influence of the Babylonian cult at a remote period both E. and W. of the Jordan.

1. Nebo, a city of Judah (Ezr 2:29, 10:43 [1 Es 9:35 Noomias], Neh 7:29], identified by some with Beit Nubā, 12 miles N.W. of Jerusalem. This Nebo is the Nobai ( a signatory to the covenant) of Neh 10:20. Whether either form exactly corresponds to the original name is uncertain.

2. The Moabite town called Nebo is mentioned in Nu 32:3, 33, 33:47 , Is 15:2, Jer 48:1, 22, 1 Ch 5:8, and also in the inscription of Mesha, who says: ‘And Chemosh said unto me, Go take Nebo against Israel.’ The exact site is unknown, but the town probably lay on, or near, Mt. Nebo.

3. Mount Nebo is the traditional site of Moses’ view of Canaan (Dt 34:1f.) and of his death ( Dt 32:50). It is described as being ‘in the land of Moab over against Jericho’ and as reached from the ‘steppes of Moah’ (Dt 34:1). There can be no question that this description implies some point on the edge of the great platean of Moab, which drops steeply some 4000 feet to the Jordan Valley or the Dead Sea. Two related problems call for solution: Which point in particular on this edge of the plateau is Mt. Nebo? How does the actual view thence agree with the terms of Dt 34:1f.? There appears to be most reason for identifying Mt. Nebo with the point now called Nebā, and the identification might be regarded as certain if we could feel sure that Nebā is really an ancient name, and not merely (as it may be) the name attached to the summit after tradition had claimed it as the Nebo of the Bible. Nebā lies about 12 miles almost due E. of the Jordan at the point where the river enters the Dead Sea, and is one of the summits most easily ascended from the steppes of Moah. In this respect it satisfies the description better than the other sites which have been proposed, (1) the somewhat loftier Mt. Attārus 10 miles farther south, and (2) Mt. Oshā some 20 miles north of Mt. Nebā and a finer point of view, but outside Moab. The view from each of these great points and from several others along the great mountain wall which encloses the Jordan Valley on the E. is extensive and impressive; but its limitations in some directions are also sharply defined. Northward (or, strictly, between N. and N.N.W.) the view extends far; from Mt. Nebā, for example, it is possible to see Mt. Tabor, 70 miles away. Westwards, on the other hand, it is blocked at from 30 to 40 miles by the great wall formed by the sharp declivity of the Judæan plateau to the Jordan Valley. This western mountain wall is of approximately the same height as the Moabite wall on the E. Consequently from no point in Moab is it possible to see the ‘hinder sea,’ i.e. the Mediterranean; nor is it possible to see more than about one-third of the country between Jordan and the Mediterranean. It follows that the description in Dt 34:1f. is inaccurate not only in mentioning specific features (the Mediterranean, Dan, probably Zoar) which are out of sight, but in giving the general impression that the view commanded the whole of Western Palestine, whereas it actually commands but a third. The difficulty could be in part overcome by considering Dt 34:2, 3 (together with the words ‘of Gilead unto Dan’ in v. 1) an editor’s note explaining the phrase ‘all the land.’ It is significant that this detailed description is absent from the Samaritan text, which has, instead, a shorter description which defines the land of Israel but not the view. For a further discussion of the view from Nebā, see Expositor, Nov. 1904, pp. 321–341. See also art. PISGAH.

G. B. GRAY.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR.—See next article.

NEBUCHADREZZAR.—The Nabū-kudur-uzur of the Babylonians, for which

‘Nebuchadnezzar’ (the familiar form often retained in the present work) is an error, was son and successor of Nahopolassar, founder of the New Bab. empire (B.C. 604–561) . The fall of Nineveh gave Egypt a chance to reclaim Syria, and Pharaoh-Necho made an attempt to regain it. Josiah fell in a vain effort to repel him (2 K 23:29), but Nebuchadrezzar defeated him at Carchemish (B.C. 605). He then recovered the whole of the West, and seems to have been threatening Egypt when recalled to Babylon by news of his father’s death. At this time he first captured Jerusalem ( Dn 1:1, 2). We know little of his wars from his own inscriptions, which deal almost entirely with his buildings and pious acts at home. According to classical historians, he made Babylon one of the wonders of the world. He fortified it with a triple line of walls and a moat; he restored temples and cities throughout his kingdom. A fragment of his annals records that in his 37th year he. fought against Amasis in Egypt (cf. Jer 46:13–26, Ezk 29:2–20). For his relations with Judah, see JEHOIAKIM, JEHOIACHIN, ZEDEKIAH, GEDALIAH. He certainly was the greatest king of Babylon since Hammurabi. For his madness, see MEDICINE, p. 599^a.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NEBUSHAZBAN (Jer 39:13).—The Bab. Nabū-shezib-anni, ‘Nabu save me,’ was Rab-saris (wh. see) at the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NEBUZARADAN.—The Bab. Nabū-zer-iddin, ‘Nabū has given seed,’ ‘the chief of the bodyguard’ to Nebuchadrezzar (2 K 25:8–20 , Jer 52:30). He was charged with the pacification of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NEC(H)O.—2 K 23:29, 33, 2 Ch 35:20–36:4, Jer 46:2, Egyp. Neko or Nekoou, son of

Psammetichus I. and second king of the 26th Dyn. (B.C. 610–594) . Continuing the development of Egypt that had gone on in his father’s long reign, Necho commenced a canal joining the Nile and the Red Sea, but abandoned it unfinished. Early in his reign he also endeavoured to revive the dominion of Egypt in Syria, seizing the opportunity afforded by the collapse of Assyria; his army reached the Euphrates, having brushed aside the force with which Josiah endeavoured to oppose him at Megiddo, and slain that king. Returning, he deposed Jehoahaz, the son and successor of Josiah, at Riblah, substituted for him his elder brother Eliakim, whose name he changed to Jehoiakim, and exacted tribute from the new king at the expense of the people. But

Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, was now secure enough in the east to send his son

Nebuchadrezzar to dispute the prize with the Egyptian king. Nebuchadrezzar routed Necho’s forces at Carchemish (in B.C. 605), and took from him all his Syrian possessions, from ‘the brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates.’

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

NECK.—The most usual words are ‘ōreph and tsavvār in Heb., and trachēlos in Greek. Chains upon the neck were a common ornament (Pr 1:9 etc., Ezk 16:11). To fall upon one another’s neck has from old time been an affectionate form of greeting in the East (Gn 33:4 etc.). The neck under yoke meant subjection and servitude (Dt 28:48 etc.); breaking of the yoke meant deliverance (Gn 27:40, Jer 30:8). Stiff or hard of neck (Dt 31:27 etc.) signified one difficult to guide, like a hard-necked bullock in the furrow. To put the foot upon the neck of a foe, meant his utter overthrow (Jos 10:24 etc.). To put the neck to work (Neh 3:5) was a phrase equivalent to our own ‘put a hand to.’

W. EWING.

NECKLACE.—See ORNAMENTS, § 3.

NECROMANCY.—See MAGIC DIVINATION AND SORCERY.

NEDABIAH.—A descendant of David (1 Ch 3:18).

NEEDLE’S EYE.—See CAMEL, ad fin. NEEDLE WORK.—See EMBROIDERY.

NEESING.—The vb. ‘to neese’ (mod. ‘sneeze’) occurs in the 1611 ed. of AV at 2 K 4:35,’ the child neesed seven times.’ But the ‘neesing’ ( Job 41:18) of leviathan (the crocodile) means hard breathing, snorting, and does not come from the same A.S. verb as ‘neese’ meaning ‘to sneeze.’

NEGEB, originally meaning ‘the dry land,’ is in most passages in the OT the name of a definite geographical area (Dt 1:7, 34:3, Jos 10:40, 12:8 etc.); the word is, however, used also in the sense of ‘South’ (Gn 13:14). The Negeb was often the scene of Abraham’s wanderings (Gn 12:9, 13:1, 8, 20:1); here Hagar was succoured by the angel (Gn 16:7, 14); Isaac (Gn 24:62) and

Jacob (Gn 37:1, 46:5) both dwelt there; through this district passed the spies (Nu 13:17, 22). In Nu 13:29 the Negeb is described as belonging to the Amalekites. Later the land was allotted to Simeon, and its cities are enumerated (Jos. 19:1–9); later they reverted to Judah (Jos 15:21–32).

David was stationed by Achish at Ziklag on the borders of the Negeb (1 S 27:6). At this time the Negeb is described as of several parts, the Negeb of Judah, of the Jerahmeelites, and of the Kenites (1 S 27:10); while in 1 S 30:14 we read of the Negeb of the Cherethites and of Caleb. Jeremiah (13:19) prophesied trouble as coming on the cities of this region, but on the return from captivity they too were to participate in the blessings (32:44, 33:13).

The district in question was an ill-defined tract of country lying S. of Hebron, and extending some 70 miles to the Tih or desert. It was bounded on the E. by the Dead Sea and the ‘Arābāh, while W. it faded away into the Maritime Plain. It was a pastoral region, wedged between the cultivated lands on the N. and the wilderness, and formed a most efficient barrier to the land of Israel towards the South. Attacks of large armed forces could not come from this direction, but only by the ‘Arābāh to the S.E. (Gn 14), viā Gaza on S.W., or by the E. of the Jordan. The Israelites themselves were compelled to take the last route. The country consists of a series of mountainous ridges running in a general direction E. and W., with open wadys in which a certain amount of water collects even now; In ancient days dams were constructed in places to collect and store the rainfall, which to-day soon runs off. Though now little better than a wilderness, the numerous ruins of towns and broken terraces witness to days of large population and good cultivation; the OT, too, in the stories of Saul’s and David’s captures from the Amalekites (1 S 15:9 , 27:9), witnesses to a great wealth of cattle. In Byzantine times the land attained its highest prosperity. Under neglect it has become again little better than a desert: the Bedouin of these parts are known in Palestine for their skill in making rough cisterns on the hillsides to catch the surface water, and have in recent years been employed to construct many such in the ‘wilderness of Judæa.’ Beersheba and the district around have recently been greatly improved: a rough carriage road has been made from there to Gaza.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

NEGINAH, NEGINOTH.—See PSALMS, p. 772^a.

NEHELAMITE.—An epithet applied to Shemaiah, a false prophet who opposed Jeremiah ( Jer 29:24, 31, 32). According to analogy the word should mean ‘an inhabitant of Nehelam.’ but there is no place of that name mentioned in the Bible.

NEHEMIAH.—1. One of the twelve heads of the Jewish community (Ezr 2:2 = Neh 7:7), 1 Es 5:8 Nehemias. 2. One of those who helped to repair the wall of Jerusalem (Neh 3:16). 3. See the following article.

NEHEMIAH.—Son of Hacaliah and cupbearer to king Artaxerxes. Our sole source of information regarding this great Jewish patriot is the book that bears his name. According to this, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes (i.e., as usually understood, of Artaxerxes I. Longimanus, 464– 424), B.C. 445–444 , Nehemiah is at Susa, the chief city of Elam and the winter residence of the Persian court. Here, in consequence of a report that reaches him regarding the ruined condition of Jerusalem and its people, Nehemiah is, on his own initiative, appointed governor (pechah) of the province of Judæa by the king. He is granted a limited leave of absence by the latter, furnished with royal letters and an escort to assure his safe passage; and also with a royal rescript to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forests, commanding that he shall be furnished with sufficient supplies of timber. On arriving at Jerusalem, having satisfied himself as to the ruinous condition of the city walls, he energetically begins the task of rebuilding them, and, in spite of much opposition from without (from Sanballat and others), he, with the aid of the entire Jewish population drawn from the outlying villages, successfully accomplishes his undertaking within two months (Neh 1–7) . All this, according to the usually accepted chronology, happened in the year 444. The wall was ‘finished’ on the 25th day of the 6th month (6:16), and on the first day of the following month the events of the religious reform described in chs. 8–10 apparently began. The Book of the Law was read by Ezra in the presence of Nehemiah before the people in solemn assembly; the Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated (8:18–19); national confession of sin was made (ch. 9); and the ‘covenant’ was sealed, the people pledging themselves to observe its obligations (ch. 10). In 12:27–43 a description of the solemn dedication of the completed walls is given. If 2 Mac 1:19 can be relied on as preserving a true tradition, the dedication took place on the 25th of Chislev (December), i.e. three months after the completion, and two months after the reading of the Law and the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The exact sequence of these events is uncertain. Some would place the reading of the Law, etc., subsequent to the Dedication, in the following year. Rawlinson proposed to place the Dedication 12 years later, in Nehemiah’ s second governorship. But this view is improbable.

Shortly after these events, it would seem, Nehemiah returned to the Persian court, and was absent from Jerusalem for some years.

How long exactly Nehemiah’s first governorship lasted, and for how great an interval he was absent from Jerusalem, are uncertaio. In 5:14 it seems to he stated definitely that he was goveroor in the first instance for 12 years. But in 13:6 Nehemiah says: ‘But all this time I was not at Jerusalem: for in the twoand-thirtieth year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I went unto the king, and, after certain days, asked I leave of the king.’ On the whole it seems probable that 5:14 means that during the twelve years Nehemiah, though absent on court duty, was actually governor, ruling by deputies; and that in the 32nd year of the king’s reign he again secured leave of absence, and came to Jerusalem (B.C. 433). The evils he found on his return must have taken some considerable time to develop.

On his return to Jerusalem in 433 Nehemiah found various abuses and internal disorders rampant in the community. Eliashib ‘the priest’ had provided Tobiah with quarters in one of the Temple-chambers (13:4f.), the Levites had not received their dues, the Sabbath was openly desecrated in and around Jerusalem (13:15f.), and, in spite of Ezra’s great puritanical movement, mixed marriages were still common, and the children of such marriages spoke ‘half’ in their mothers’ foreign speech (13:23f.). Possibly information as to these developments had impelled Nehemiah to return. At any rate, on his arrival he asserted himself with characteristic vigour, and inaugurated drastic measures of reform. One characteristic sentence vividly illustrates this relentless zeal: ‘And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to San-ballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me’ (13:28). ‘Thus cleansed I them’—he proceeds—‘from every thing strange, and appointed wards for the priests and for the Levites, every one to his work: and for the wood offering at times appointed, and for the first-fruits’ (13:30).

The Book of Nehemiah (see next article) is composite in character, and the narrative is in part fragmentary. Hence the actual course of events is by no means always clear and certain. Some scholars are of opinion that the Artaxerxes referred to is Artaxerxes II. Mnemon (reigned B.C. 404–358) , and suppose that Nehemiah was governor for the 12 years 384–372 , and again at a later period. Josephus places Nehemiah in the time of Xerxes.

The personality of Nehemiah, as revealed in his memoirs, is in many respects strangely attractive. He appears as a gifted and accomplished man of action, well versed in the ways of the world, and well equipped to meet difficult situations. The combination of strength and gracefulness, the generosity, fervent patriotism, and religious zeal of the man contributed to form a personality of striking force and power. He is a unique figure in the OT, and rendered services of incalculable value to the cause of Judaism. Even his limitations reveal a certain strength (e.g. his naïve prayer: ‘Remember unto me, O my God, for good all that I have done for this people’). Like all great men, he has become the subject of legend (cf. 2 Mac 1:18f.). But he deserves in every respect the eulogium pronounced upon him by ben-Sira (Sir 49:13) and by Josephus, who (Ant. XI. v. 8) says of him: ‘He was a man of good and righteous character, and very ambitious

to make his own nation happy; and he hath left the walls of Jerusalem as an eternal monument of himself.’

G. H. BOX.

NEHEMIAH, BOOK OF.—The two books, separated in our Bible and appearing there as Ezra and Nehemiah, originally formed a single book (as appears from the Talmud, the LXX, and from internal evidence), which was the sequel to Chronicles. In fact Ezra verbally continues the narrative of 2 Ch 36 (cf. 2 Ch 36:22, 23 with Ezr 1:1–2), and the whole work—1 and 2 Chron., Ezra, and Nehemiah—forms a single continuous narrative from Adam to Nehemiah’s second visit to Jerusalem, and was probably compiled by the Chronicler. That part of this voluminous work which now bears the title Nehemiah is so called because it deals largely with the career of the Jewish patriot whose name it carries, and embodies excerpts of considerable extent from his personal memoirs.

1. Extracts from the memoirs embodied in Nehemiah.—(a) 1:1–7:5 . At the outset we meet with a long section where the first person sing, is used throughout, viz. 1:1–7:6 . These chapters are indubitably authentic extracts from Nehemiah’s personal memoirs. They are distinguished by individual characteristics which help us to form a distinct idea of the writer’s personality. Enthusiasm for a great idea, and unstinting and unselfish devotlon to its realization, are marked features. From 5:14 it is clear that the narrative can not have been put into its present form till some years after the events recounted. Doubts have been raised as to the authenticity of 6:15 ( the walls finished in 52 days), but the objection is not a fatal one. It should be noted, however, that according to Josephus (Ant. XI. v. 8) the building of the walls lasted 2 years and 8 months. On what authority Josephus bases this assertion is not known. (3:1–32 , a llst of persons who helped to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, has also been the subject of doubt.)

(b) 7:6–73a. This section contains a list of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel, which Nehemiah (7:5) says he ‘found’: it also appears in Ezra’s memoirs (Ezr 2), with slight differences. It forms a natural and easy continuation to 7:5, and probably from the very first stood as a constituent element in Nehemiah’s memoirs.

(c) Ch. 11. This chapter, which contains a list of persons who drew lots to reside at Jerusalem, and other details regarding the settlement of the capital, probably also stood in the original memoirs. The list—which partly recurs in 1 Ch 9:3–17—is to be regarded as the immediate continuation of ch. 7 (with Ewald), and refers to measures taken by Zerubbabel. Doubtless it was followed in the memoirs by an account of what Nehemiah did to resume and complete these measures (cf. 7:4, 6), but this has, unfortunately, not been preserved to us.

(d) 12:27–43 . Account of the dedication of the walls. Notice the resumption of the 1st pers.

sing, (vv. 31, 38, 40). This passage is an excerpt from the memoirs, but has been abridged and revised by the compiler.

(e) 13:4–31 . Another extract from the memoirs, giving details of a time some 12 or more years later than that referred to in the earlier extracts. It deals with Nehemiah’s second visit.

2. Passages in Nehemiah not derived from the memoirs.—(a) 7:73b–10:40 (39) . This long section breaks the connexion which it is generally agreed exists between 7:73a and ch. 11. In its present form it is doubtless due to the compiler; but it contains so many details of an apparently authentic character, its representation is often so vivid, that it is probable that the work of an eyewitness has been used and worked up by the compiler in producing the present narrative. Probably 9:6–10:40 has been taken over directly from the memoirs of Ezra (the LXX ascribes the prayer beginning in 9:6” to Ezra: ‘And Ezra said’). The whole section, therefore, can be regarded as of first-rate authority.

(b) 12:1–26 . A list of priests and Levites who returned with Zerubbabel. Notice how the priestly genealogy is carried far down below Nehemiah’s time, as far, in fact, as the reign of Darius the Persian (v. 22), i.e. Darius III. Codomannus (reigned B.C. 335–331) . The high priest Jaddua mentioned in v. 11 is known from Josephus to have been a contemporary of Alexander the Great.

3. Historical value of the Book.—On the whole, recent criticism has been favourable to the older view as to the essential trustworthiness of the narrative of events given in Ezra-Nehemiah. Reference has already been made in the previous article to the view that the Artaxerxes mentioned is the second of that name. If this is accepted, Ezra’s visit and work of reform fall in the year 398. Kosters goes much further than this.

‘According to him, a return of exiles in the second year of Cyrus did not take place at all; the building of the Temple and the walls was rather the work of the population that had remained behind in the land (2 K 25:12), of whom Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were governors; Ezra’s visit and work of reform fall in the second governorship of Nehemiah, after the events narrated in Neh 13:4–31 . Ezra arrived for the first time after 433; first of all the community was reconstituted by the dissolution of the mixed marriages, and then solemnly bound to the observance of the Law which had been brought with him by Ezra: the first returnjourney under Zerubbabel, with all those who joined themselves with him, has been invented by the Chronicler, who reversed the order of events. Finally, according to Torrey, the “I” passages, with the exception of Neh 1, 2 (mainly) and 3:32–6:19 ( mainly), have been fabricated by the Chronicler, who in them created his masterpiece: and Nehemiah also belongs to the reign of Artaxerxes II. (Cornill).

Kosters’ theory has been energetically opposed by Wellhausen, and since Ed. Meyer’s demonstration of the essential authenticity of the documents embodied in Ezra 4–7 , the extreme form of the critical theory may be regarded as having lost most of its plausibility.

G. H. BOX.

NEHEMIAS.—1. 1 Es 5:8 = Nehemiah, Ezr 2:2, Neh 7:7. 2. 1 Es 5:40, Nehemiah the contemporary of Ezra.

NEHILOTH.—See PSALMS, p. 772^a.

NEHUM.—One of the twelve heads of the Jewish community (Neh 7:7); prob. a scribal error for Rehum of Ezr 2:2 called in 1 Es 5:8 Roimus.

NEHUSHTA.—Wife of king Jehoiakim and mother of Jehoiachin (2 K 24:8). She was taken a prisoner to Babylon with her son in 597 (2 K 24:12).

NEHUSHTAN.—See SERPENT (BRAZEN).

NEIEL.—See NEAH.

NEKODA.—1. Eponym of a family of Nethinim (Ezr 2:48 = Neh 7:60); called in 1 Es 5:31 Noeba. 2. Name of a family which returned from the Exile, but were unable to prove their Israelitish descent (Ezr 2:60 = Neh 7:62); called in 1 Es 5:37 Nekodan.

NEKODAN (1 Es 5:37) = Nekoda, Ezr 2:60, Neh 7:62.

NEMUEL.—1. See JEMUEL. The patronymic Nemuelites occurs in Nu 26:12. 2. A Reubenite (Nu 26:9).

NEPHEG.—1. Son of Izhar and brother of Korah (Ex 6:21). 2. One of David’s sons (2 S 5:16 = 1 Ch 3:7, 14:6).

NEPHEW.—In AV ‘nephew’ means ‘grandson.’ It occurs in Jg 12:14, Job 18:19, Is 14:22, 1 Ti 5:4.

NEPHILIM.—A Heb. word, of uncertain etymology, retained by B.V in the only two places where it occurs in OT (AV ‘giants’). In Gn 6:4 we read: ‘The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men and they hare to them; these are the heroes which were of old, the men of renown.’ The verse has the appearance of an explanatory gloss to the obscure mythological fragment which precedes, and is very difficult to understand. But we can hardly be wrong in supposing that it bears witness to a current belief (to which there are many heathen parallels) in a race of heroes or demigods, produced by the union of divine beings (‘sons of God’) with mortal women. The other notice is Nu 13:33, where the name is applied to men of gigaotic stature seen by the spies among the natives of Canaan. That these giants were popularly identified with the demigods of Gn 6:4, there is no reason to doubt. See also art. GIANT.

J. SKINNER.

NEPHISHESIM, NEPHISIM.—See NAPHISH.

NEPHTHAI.—See NEPHTHAR.

NEPHTHAR.—The name given by Nehemiah to a ‘thick substance’ which was found in a dry pit after the return from Babylon (2 Mac 1:18–35) . The legend relates how certain priests, before the Captivity, took the sacred fire and hid it. On the Return, when a search was made, there was found in its place this highly inflammable substance, which seems not to have differed much from the naphtha of commerce. Some of it was poured over the sacrifice, and was ignited by the great heat of the sun and burned with a bright flame. The name nephthar or nephthai [ v. 36] has not been satisfactorily explained, although it is said by the writer to mean ‘cleansing.’

T. A. MOXON.

NEPHTOAH.—A town on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Jos 15:9, 18:16), usually identified with Lifta, about 2 miles N.W. of Jerusalem (so Tobler, Baedeker-Socin, Guthe, etc.). The Talmud identifies Nephtoah with Etam, the modern ‘Ain ‘Atām, at what are popularly called the Pools of Solomon, S. of Bethlehem (Neuhauer, Géog. du Talm. p. 146). This latter is favoured by Conder, who would place Eleph at Lifta. The phrase ‘the fountain of the waters of Nephtoah’ would lead us to expect abundant supplies of water. In this respect the claim of ‘Ain ‘Atām is certainly stronger than that of Lifta.

W. EWING.

NEPHUSHESIM, NEPHUSIM.—See NAPHISI.

NER.—The father of Abner (1 S 14:50f., 26:6, 14 etc.).

NEREUS.—A Roman Christian, to whom, along with his sister, St. Paul sends greeting in Ro 16:15. The expression ‘and all the saints that are with them’ seems to point to some community of Christians accustomed to meet together.

MORLEY STEVENSON.

NERGAL.—The god of the city of Cubta in Babylonia, hence worshipped by the captive Cuthæans who were transplanted to Samaria by Sargon (2 K 17:30). In the Bab.-Assyr. pantheon he was a god of war and pestilence, and of hunting, and the planet Mars was sacred to him.

The name Nergal is probably of Sumerian origin, namely, Ner-gal—‘great warrior.’ The god is sometimes in the non-Semitic texts called Ner-unu-gal, ‘hero of the lower world,’ evidently indicating his connexion with death and destruction.

W. M. NESBIT.

NERGAL-SHAREZER.—The Bab. Nērgal-shar-uzur ‘Nergal preserve the king,’ the Rabmag (wh. see) , who, with Nebuzaradan and Nebushazban, released Jeremiah from prison (Jer 39:3, 13). It is tempting to suppose that he was the Nērgal-shar-uzur who married a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar, and later came to the throne of Babylon, and is known from classical writers as Neriglissar (B.C. 559–556).

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NERI.—An ancestor of Jesus (Lk 3:27).

NERIAH.—The father of Baruch (Jer 32:12, 16, 36:4, 8, 32, 43:3, 6, 45:1, 51:59). In Bar 1:1 the Greek form of the name, Nerias, is retained.

NERIAS.—See NERIAH.

NERO is not mentioned by name in the NT, but his connexion with St. Paul’s trial (Ac 25– 28 , where ‘Cæsar’ is Nero), the mention of his household (Ph 4:22), and the general consensus of opinion that the number of the Beast 666 (Rev 13:18) is a cypher indicating Nero Kesar ( the Gr. way of pronouncing the Emperor’s name), are sufficient reasons for including him here. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Gnaens Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 32 (died 40) A.D.) and Iulia Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus (the adopted son of the Emperor Tiberius), who became wife of the Emperor Claudius in 48 A.D., was born on 15 Dec. in the year 37 A.D. On adoption by his step-father on 25 Feb. 50 he received new names, by one of which, Nero, he has since been known. On the murder of Claudius his sole rule began in 54, and during it he was officially known as Imperator Nero Claudius Cæsar Augustus Germanicus. His death took place on 9 June, 68, in his thirty-first year.

Nero inherited evil qualities from his father and mother, which for the first five years of his reign, when he was a mere youth, were kept in check by his two tutors, Burrus an experienced soldier, and Seneca the distinguished philosopher. His mother, a woman of very strong will, who had successfully schemed for his advancement, had no good influence on him, and, when of age to throw off all restraints, he plunged into follies and excesses which suggest that madness had unhinged his mind. His defects, however, seem to have done little more than scandalize and amuse Rome: the prosperity of the provinces, thanks to the excellence of the bureaucratic machine, continued. Space permits only a reference to some important events in his reign.

The question of the Eastern frontier, which was a problem ever present to the Emperors, demanded settlement from Nero. The safety of this frontier could he secured only if Armenia were under the suzerainty of Rome. It was therefore the object of their perpetual rivals, the Parthians, to obtain this suzerainty. The Romans dared not annex Armenia, because it would inevitably become necessary to annex also the whole of the country on the west of the Tigris. At the opening of Nero’s reign, Tiridates, a Parthian, had established himself securely on the throne of Armenia, and the possession of Armenia by the Romans was thus seriously threatened. The ultimate intention of Rome was to offer Armenia to Tiridates as a gift, but as a necessary preliminary to this they made the most vigorous preparations for war. Cn. Domitius Corbulo, one of the ablest generals of the 1st cent., was appointed by Nero to conduct the campaign, and the governor of Syria and the other officials and client-princes in the neighbourhood of Armenia were instructed to co-operate with him. The condition of the Eastern troops caused a delay of two and a half years. After a terrible winter passed in tents in the uplying plain of Armenia, Corbulo was ready to strike in spring 58, and as the result of this first campaign Tiridates asked for terms. He was offered his kingdom as a gift from Rome, but refused to accept it, and in the second campaign (59) the Roman general marched upon Tiridates’ capital Artaxata, which surrendered, and proceeded thence by a long and difficult march to Tigranocerta, the second capital, in the extreme south, which in its turn surrendered. In the year 60, which was occupied in pacification, Tigranes, who was educated in Rome, was placed on the throne by Nero. The folly of this king and the cowardice and incompetence of the Roman general Pætus threatened to undo all that Corbulo had achieved; but Corbulo, as supreme commander-in-chief for the whole Eastern frontier, retrieved the loss in the year 63 and following on this successful campaign Tiridates received the crown as the gift of Rome. The long peace with Armenia which followed is to the credit of Corbulo’s consummate generalship and Nero’s skilful diplomacy. The Roman hold on Britain, which his predecessor Claudius had obtained, was further strengthened under Nero. It was in his reign that the justly aroused rebellion under Boudicca (better known by the incorrect form Boadicea) in East Anglia was crushed, after terrible massacres by the Britons, by the governor Suetonius Paulinus (60). There was henceforth, for a considerable time, peace in Britain. The Germany and Danube frontiers also engaged attention in Nero’s time.

In the city Nero exercised a wise care for the corn and water supplies. He also increased the power of the Senate, and may be said to have constituted an Imperial Cabinet. He was fond of the arts, especially music and poetry, but he never attained more than a respectable standard in either. On 19 July, 64, fire broke out in Rome, and raged for nine days in all, leaving great parts of the city in ashes. On the evidence Nero must be acquitted of all connexion with the fire, which was due to chance. The populace, however, suspected the Emperor, and were anxious to bring retribution on the originators of the fire. Nero selected the Christians as scapegoats, and he may have believed them guilty, as some of them were understood to have confessed their guilt. They were subjected to every imaginable variety of cruel death. These punishments did not remove suspicion from Nero, and, as the populace soon became sated, other charges had to be brought against them. Of these charges, hostility to civilized society was the chief. At a later stage in history we find evidence to justify the conclusion that the name ‘Christian’ was held to be a sufficient charge in Itself. A conspiracy against the Emperor’s life, in which some of the chief men in the State were implicated, failed of its purpose through treachery in 65; the effect on the Emperor’s mind issued in a reign of terror, and a number of the noblest persons, particularly Stoics, were put to death. The later days of Nero saw the rise of the Jewish insurrection against the Roman power, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the massacre of countless Jews in A.D. 70. Two years before that, however, the revolt of Gaul under Vindex had been the prelude to Nero’s death. His life of ease and luxury had weakened a nature never inured to hardship, and when the hour of danger came he sought a refuge in suicide. Not long after his death there arose a curious rumour in the East, that he had come to life again, or had not really died. The East had seen nothing but his best side, and this rumour, born of a desire to see him emperor again, seriously endangered the peace of the Empire, as more than one person came forward claiming to be Nero.

Of the trial or trials of St. Paul we know nothing certain. It is highly probable that his appeal was heard either before a committee of the Emperor’s privy council, or before the Emperor’s deputy, the prefect of the city.

A. SOUTER.

NEST (qēn).—Used literally of birds’ nests ( Dt 22:6, 32:11, Job 39:27, Ps 84:3, 104:17, Pr 27:8 , Is 16:2); metaphorically for a lofty fortress (Nu 24:21, Jer 49:16, Ob 4, Hab 2:9); Job refers to his lost home as a nest (29:18); in Gn 6:14 the ‘rooms’ of the ark are (see mg.) literally ‘nests’ (qinnīm) . In Mt 8:20, Lk 9:58 our Lord contrasts His wandering, homeless life with that of the birds which have their ‘nests’ (kataskēnōseis, RVm ‘lodging-places’).

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

NETAIM.—A place situated probably in the Shephēlah of Judah. See GEDERAH.

NETHANEL.—1. The ‘prince’ of Issachar (Nu 1:8, 2:5, 7:18, 23, 10:15). 2. One of David’s brothers (1 Ch 2:14). 3. A priest in the time of David (1 Ch 15:24). 4. A Levite (1 Ch 24:6). 5. One of Obed-edom’s sons (1 Ch 26:4). 6. A ‘prince’ sent by Jehoshaphat to teach in the cities of Judah (2 Ch 17:7). 7. A chief of the Levites under Josiah (2 Ch 35:9 [1 Es 1:9 Nathanael]). 8. A priest who had married a foreign wife (Ezr 10:22 [1 Esr 9:22 Nathanael]). 9. A priest in time of Joiakim (Neh 12:21). 10. A Levite musician (Neh 12:35).

NETHANIAH.—1. The father of Ishmael the murderer of Gedaliah (2 K 25:23, 25, Jer 40:8, 14, 15, 41:1f., 6f., 9, 10ff., 15f., 18). 2. An Asaphite (1 Ch 25:2, 12). 3. A Levite (2 Ch 17:8). 4. The father of Jehudi (Jer 36:14).

NETHINIM.—The word is a late form of a passive participle nĕth ūnīm, and denotes ‘men who are given.’ In early days, when sacrifices were offered in the open air, there was little difficulty occasioned by the odour and dirt arising from the blood, fat, and ashes. But when they were offered within the walls of a temple, and offered with great frequency and with large numbers of victims, some very disagreeable drudgery was always necessary. The chopping of wood, lighting of fires, sharpening of knives, drawing of water, the cleansing not only of the altar and its surroundings and utensils, but of the whole of the Temple precincts, and the performance of many menial offices for the priests, required a large staff of servants. The analogy of other lands suggests that these offices would be performed by slaves, procured either by purchase or capture. The Greeks had hierodoutoi, ‘temple slaves,’ and the Mohammedans at Mecca similarly. It is not known at what date the practice arose in Israel; but there seem to have been three stages in the history of Temple servants. (1) They were slaves in the strict sense; (2) they were admitted to Israelite privileges, being circumcised, and treated as free men holding an official position in the Church; (3) they rose in standing and prestige so as to become practically equivalent to the Levites.

1. The name Nethinim is not used before the Exile. Ezr 8:20 speaks of the Nethinim as those ‘whom David and the princes had given for the service of the Levites,’ which shows, at least, that common belief traced their origin back to David. A very similar class of persons, ‘the children of Solomon’s servants,’ is mentioned in Ezr 2:55, 58, Neh 7:57, 60, 11:3; their descent was evidently traced to the non-Israelite slaves employed by Solomon in connexion with his buildings, some of whom must have laboured in the new royal sanctuary (cf. 1 K 9:19–21) . This employment of foreign slaves in the Temple continued till the beginning of the Exile (Ezk 44:6f.).

2. A change in the status of these men was brought about by the Exile. When the people were far from the land, every one who had held any sort of position in the Temple must have gained a certain prestige. The former Temple-slaves seemed to have formed themselves into a guild. By the very fact of their exile, they were freed from their slavery to the Temple, and thus when they and their sons returned to Jerusalem, they returned as free men, who were recognized as part of the nation. As a guild, they acquired for themselves the title Nethinim, owing to their traditional origin. In Ezr 2:48–58, 70 = Neh 7:46–58 , 73 are given the names of the Nethinim who are reported to have returned with Zerubbabel; and they are mentioned together with priests, Levites, singers, and porters. Some of the names in the list are undoubtedly of foreign origin. Again, Ezra relates (8:20) that on his return, 220 Nethinim from Casiphia accompanied him. After a time we find them so completely established as a sacred official class, that privileges are accorded to them. They shared with priests, Levites, singers, and porters, immunity from taxation (Ezr 7:24). They lived in a special quarter of the city, named Ophel, i.e. the southern and eastern slope of the Temple hill, or more particularly that part of it which reached to the Water-gate on the east, and to the tower projecting from the royal palace (Neh 3:28). They were thus near the Temple, and Bp. Ryle (Ezra, etc., p. lviii) points out the appropriateness of assigning to ‘drawers of water’ the position by the Water-gate, which communicated with the Virgin’s Spring. And v. 31 mentions ‘the house of the Nethinim,’ which must have been an official building used by them during their periods of duty. They were under the command of two chiefs—of whom one, at least, was a member of their own body—Ziha and Gishpa (Neh 11:21); the former is the first in the list, in Ezr 2:45 = Neh 7:48, and Gishpa may possibly be the same as Hasupha, the second name. Further, only a portion of them, like the priests, Levites, singers, and porters, dwelt in Jerusalem; the others ‘dwelt in their cities’ (Ezr 2:70 = Neh 7:73, 1 Ch 9:2). And so far were they from being regarded as foreign slaves, that they joined, as full members of the community, in the oath that they would not (among other things) allow their sons and daughters to marry any but Israelites (Neh 10:28–30).

3. From this point the Nethinim gradually rose in official position, until they were indistinguishable from the Levites. In 1 Ch 23:28 the Levites are spoken of in such a way as to suggest that the term included all Temple-servants. And conversely, since singers and doorkeepers (who are quite distinct from Levites in Ezr.-Neh.) were explicitly reckoned by the Chronicler as Levites (1 Ch 15:18, 26:1–19), it is probable that the same was the case with the Nethinim. Finally, in 1 Es 1:3 the Levites, and in 8:22, 48 the Nethinim, are described by the same term, hierodoutoi.

A. H. M‘NEILE.

NETOPHAH.—A town, the name of which first occurs in the list of the exiles who returned under Zerubbabel (Ezr 2:22 = Neh 7:26 = 1 Es 5:18 Netophas) . Perhaps the name is preserved in the modern Beit Nettif at the entrance to the Wady es-Sunt or Vale of Elah. The gentilic name the Netophathite(s) occurs in 2 S 23:28f., 2 K 25:23, Jer 40:8.

NETOPHAS (1 Es 5:18) = Netophah of Ezr 2:22 || Neh 7:26.

NETS were used in taking wild animals (see HUNTING), and birds (see SNARES) ; but their main use has always been in fishing. The ancient Hebrews were not fishermen, nor do they seem to have eaten much fish. There is no reference in OT to fishing in the inland waters of Palestine. The fishermen and the implements named are either Egyptian or Phœnician. The ‘fisherpartners’ of Job 41:6 are Phœnicians; the fishermen of Is 19:8 are Egyptians. Fish were taken along the Mediterranean coast with ‘line and book’ (Job 41:1, Is 19:8, Am 4:2), and the ‘fishspear’ or ‘harpoon’ (Job 41:7). But sufficient quantities for commercial purposes could be obtained only by means of nets. (a) Heb. mikmār (Is 51:20) and makmōr ( Ps 141:10) and the fem. forms mikmōreth (Is 19:8) and mikmereth (Hab 1:15, 16) is probably = Gr. sagēnē ( Mt 13:47), the Arab, jarf, ‘draw-net.’ It is as much as 400 metres long, 20 ft. deep, and of fine mesh, so that it sweeps everything before it. From the stern of a boat it is paid out in a great semicircle, the lower edge carried down by lead sinkers, the upper sustained by cork floats. It is then drawn ashore, with its contents, by ropes attached to the ends. Fishermen swim behind, diving to ease it over stones and other obstructions. This accounts for Simon Peter’s condition (Jn 21:7). (b) Heb. chērem (Ezk 26:5, Hab 1:15 etc.), Gr. amphiblēstron ( Mt 14:18 etc.), the mod. shabakeh, ‘cast-net.’ It is circular, of close mesh, with a cord attached to the centre. The fisherman gathers it together, arranges it on his arm and shoulder, and moves, or wades, stealthily along the shore until he sees signs of fish within reach; then, with a skilful cast, the net flies out and drops full circle on the water; lead beads round the circumference carry it to the bottom, enclosing the fish, which are then secured at leisure. (c) A net used to-day, called m’batten, consists of three nets strung on a single rope, the two outer being of wide, the inner of close, mesh. It is let down in fairly deep water, parallel with the shore. The fish pass through the outer net, pushing the inner before them through the wide meshes on the other side, thus being entangled. The net is pulled up and emptied into the boats. (d) Gr. diktyon ( Mt 4:20 etc.) is a term used for nets in general. In the LXX amphiblēstron and sagēnē are used indiscriminately as tr. alike of chērem and mikmār, etc.

A tax is levied on all fish caught in the Sea of Galilee. The favourite fishing-grounds are near

‘Ain et-Fulīyeh, south of el-Mejdel; the bay at et-Tābigha; and the waters of el-Bateihah in the N.E. The Upper Jordan and et-Hūleh lie within the private lands of the Sultan, to whom payment is made for fishing rights. See an excellent account of, The Fisheries of Galilee’ in PEFSt, Jan. 1908 , p. 40 ff., by Dr. Masterman of Jerusalem.

W. EWING.

NETTLE.—1. chārūl (Job 30:7, Pr 24:31, Zeph 2:9), more probably a generic name for thorn bushes growing in the wilderness, such as the Zizyphus and varieties of acacia. 2. qimmōs (Is 34:13, Hos 9:6), qimměsōnīm (Pr 24:31 EV ‘thorns’). These words all refer probably to nettles, which are abundant in deserted places in Palestine.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

NEW BIRTH.—See REGENERATION.

NEW MOON.—See FEASTS, § 2, and MOON.

NEW TESTAMENT.—See BIBLE, CANON OF NT. TEXT OF NT.

NEZIAH.—The name of a family of Nethinim (Ezr 2:54, Neh 7:66); called in 1 Es 5:32 Nasi or Nasith ( the latter form in AV and RVm ).

NEZIB.—A town in the Shephēlah of Judah (Jos 15:43); the present Beit Nusib, 7 Roman miles from Eleutheropolis on the road to Hebron.

NIBHAZ.—An idol of the Avvites (2 K 17:31). But the Heb. text is corrupt, and no identification of this deity is possible.

NIBSHAN.—A city in the desert of Judah (Jos 15:62). The name has not been recovered.

NICANOR.—1. Son of Patroclus, a Syrian general who was engaged in the Jewish wars (1 Mac 3:38). He was sent by Lysias in B.C. 166 against Judas Maccabæus, but was defeated. Five years later he was sent on the same errand by Demetrius; this time he endeavoured to win by strategy what he had failed to gain by force. Again he was compelled to fight, and was twice defeated, once at Capharsalama (1 Mac 7:26–32) and again at Adasa, where he lost his life. The day of his death was ordained to be kept as a festival as ‘Nicanor’s Day. ‘The account in 2 Mac (esp. 14:12–30) differs in several details. 2. One of the ‘Seven’ (Ac 6:5).

T. A. MOXON.

NICODEMUS.—A Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin (Jn 3:1, 7:50), elderly (3:4) and evidently well-to-do (19:39). He is mentioned only in the Fourth Gospel, and there he figures thrice. (1) At the outset of His ministry Jesus went up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of the Passover, and His miracles made a deep impression on Nicodemus, half persuading him that He was the Messiah; insomuch that he interviewed Him secretly under cover of the darkness (Jn 3:1–21). He began by raising the question of the miracles, which, he allowed, proved Jesus at the least a God-commissioned teacher; but Jesus interrupted him and set him face to face with the urgent and personal matter of regeneration. Nicodemus went away bewildered, but a seed had been planted in his soul. (2) During the third year of His ministry, Jesus went up to the Feast of Tabernacles (October). The rulers were now His avowed enemies, and they convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin to devise measures against Him (7:45–52). Nicodemus was present, and, a disciple at heart but afraid to avow his faith, he merely raised a point of order: ‘Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear himself and know what he doeth?’ (RV). (3) At the meeting of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus to death Nicodemus made no protest; probably he absented himself. But after the Crucifixion, ashamed of his cowardice, he at last avowed himself and joined with Joseph of Arimathæa in giving the Lord’s body a kingly burial (19:39).

DAVID SMITH.

NICOLAITANS.—See next article.

NICOLAS (lit. ‘conqueror of the people’).—Among the Seven chosen in Ac 6 to minister to the Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews, was Nicolas, a ‘proselyte of Antioch.’ The remaining six, we infer, were of Jewish birth, for ‘proselyte’ is the emphatic word (6:5). At a later age the Jews divided converts to Judaism into two classes, ‘proselytes of righteousness,’ who were circumcised and who kept the whole Law, and ‘proselytes of the gate,’ who had only a somewhat undefined connexion with Israel. It is probable that this difference in its essence also holds in NT, where the latter class are called ‘God-fearing’ or ‘devout,’ a description which in Acts appears to be technical (so Lightfoot, Ramsay; this is disputed, however). If the view here stated be true, there were three stages in the advance towards the idea of a Catholic Church: (1) the admission of Nicolas, a full proselyte, to office in the Christian Church, followed by the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, also probably a full proselyte (8:27); (2) the baptism of Cornelius, a ‘God-fearing’ proselyte, i.e. of the latter class; (3) the direct admission of heathen to the Church without their having had any connexion with Judaism.

Nicolas is not further mentioned in NT, but Irenæus and Hippolytus assert that he was the founder of the Nicolaitans of Rev 2:6, 15 (if indeed a real sect is there meant); and Lightfoot thinks that ‘there might well be a heresiarch among the Seven’ (Galatians⁶, p. 297). It is, however, equally probable that this was only a vain claim of the late 2nd cent. sect of that name mentioned by Tertullian, for both heretics and orthodox of that and succeeding ages apocryphally claimed Apostolic authority for their opinions and writings; or it is not unlikely that the Nicolaitans of Rev 2 were so called because they exaggerated and distorted in an antinomian sense the doctrine of Nicolas, who probably preached the liberty of the gospel. Irenæus and Hippolytus are not likely to have known more about the matter than we do.

A. J. MACLEAN.

NICOPOLIS, or the ‘city of victory,’ was founded by Augustus in B.C. 31, on the spot where he had had his camp before the battle of Actium. It was made a Roman colony, and was peopled by citizens drawn from various places in Acarnania and Ætolia.

In Tit 3:12 St. Paul writes, ‘Give diligence to come unto me to Nicopolis; for there I have determined to winter.’ It may be taken as certain that this means Nicopolis in Epirus, from which doubtless St. Paul hoped to begin the evangelization of that province. No other city of the name was in such a position, or so important as to claim six months of the Apostle’s time.

The importance of Nicopolis depended partly on the ‘Actian games,’ partly on some commerce and fisheries. It was destroyed by the Goths, and, though restored by Justinian, it was supplanted in the Middle Ages by Prevesa, which grew up a little farther south. There are extensive ruins on its site.

A. E. HILLARD.

NIGER.—The second name of Symeon, one of the prophets and teachers in the Church of Antioch (Ac 13:1). His name Symeon shows his Jewish origin, and Niger was probably the Gentile name which he assumed. Nothing further is known of him.

MORLEY STEVENSON.

NIGHT.—See TIME.

NIGHT-HAWK (tachmās).—An unclean bird (Lv 11:16, Dt 14:16). What the tackmās really was is merely a matter of speculation. A species of owl, the ostrich, and even the cuckoo, have all been suggested, but without any convincing reasons. ‘Night-hawk’ is merely another name for the familiar night-jar or goat-sucker (Caprimulgus), of which three species are known in Palestine.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

NIGHT MONSTER.—See LILITH.

NILE.—The Greek name of the river, of uncertain derivation. The Egyptian name was Hopi, later Yer-‘o, ‘Great River,’ but the Hebrew generally designates the Nile by the plain Egyptian word for ‘river,’ Ye’ōr. The Nile was rich in fish, and the home of the crocodile and hippopotamus. It bore most of the internal traffic of Egypt; but it was pre-eminently the one source of water, and so of life and fertility, in a land which, without it, would have been desert. The White Nile sends down from the Central African lakes a steady stream, which is greatly increased in summer and autumn, when the half-dry beds of the Bahr el-Azrek and the Atbara are filled by the torrential rains annually poured on the mountains of Abyssinia. The waters of these tributaries are charged with organic matter washed down by the floods, and this is spread over the fields of Egypt by the inundation. The height of the Nile rise was measured and recorded by the Egyptians from the earliest times: on it depended almost wholly the harvest of the year, and a great excess might be as harmful as a deficiency. The rise begins about June 19, and after increasing slowly for a month the river gains rapidly till September; at the end of September it becomes stationary, but rises again, reaching its highest level about the middle of

October. The crops were sown as the water retreated, and on the lower ground a second crop was obtained by artificial irrigation. Canals and embankments regulated the waters in ancient times. The water was raised for the irrigation of the fields by shadūfs, i.e. buckets hung from the end of dipping poles, and handscoops, and carried by small channels which could be opened or stopped with a little mud and cut herbage: by this means the flow was directed to particular fields or parts of fields as might be required. Water-wheels were probably introduced in Greek times. In modern days, vast dams to store the water against the time of low Nile, and steam pumps (in Lower Egypt) to raise it, have changed the aspect of high Nile and revolutionized the system of irrigation; but for the smaller operations the old methods are still practised. The Nile had seven mouths, of which the western (the Canopic) and the eastern (the Pelusiac) were the most important. The former secured most of the traffic with Greece and the islands, the latter with the Phœnicians. The Pelusiac arm, on which Tahpanhes and Pi-beseth lay, would be best known to the inhabitants of Palestine. Now the ancient mouths are silted up; only a western (Rosetta branch) and a central one (Damietta branch) survive. The worship of the Nile-god must have been prominent in popular festivals, but has not left much monumental trace. The Nile was not one of the great gods, and his figure appears chiefly as emblematic of the river, e.g. bringing offerings to the gods; the figure is that of an obese man with water-plants on his head.

The Egyptians seem to have imagined a connexion of the Nile southwards with the Indian Ocean, and the priests taught the absurd notion that it gushed out north and south from two springs at the First Cataract. They also fancied a Nile in heaven producing rain, and another underground feeding the springs. The ‘seven lean years’ in Genesis is paralleled by an Egyptian tradition of a much earlier seven years’ famine under the 3rd Dyn., and years of famine due to insufficient rise of the Nile are referred to in more than one hieroglyphic text.

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

NIMRAH.—See BETH-NIMRAH.

NIMRIM, THE WATERS OF (Is 15:6, Jer 48:34).—Named along with Zoar and Horonaim, and must therefore be sought in the S. of Moab. The Onomasticon (‘Nemerim’) places it to the N. of Zoar. The name seems to be found in Wādy N’meirah, which opens on the E. shore, at Burj en-N’meirah, about three miles from the S. end of the Dead Sea.

W. EWING.

NIMROD (Gn 10:8–12, 1 Ch 1:10, Mic 5:6).—A legendary personage, described in Gn

10:8 ff. as the first of the ‘heroes,’ ‘a mighty hunter before the Lord,’ the ruler of four ancient Babylonian cities, and the founder of the Assyrian Empire. In the statement that he was begotten by Cush, we have probably a reference to the Kash or Kasshu who conquered Babylonia about the 17th cent. B.C., and set up a dynasty which lasted 600 years: the rise of Assyria is said to date from the decline of Babylonia under the later Kassite kings. The nearest Babylonian parallel to the figure of Nimrod as yet discovered is Gilgamesh, the tyrant of Erech, whose adventures are recorded in the famous series of tablets to which the Deluge-story belongs, and who is supposed to be the hero so often represented on seals and palace-reliefs in victorious combat with a lion. It was at one time hoped that the actual name Nimrod might be recovered from the ideogram commonly read as IZ. DU. BAR; and though this expectation has been dispelled by the discovery of the true pronunciation Gitgamesh, there is enough general resemblance to warrant the belief that the original of the Biblical Nimrod belongs to Babylonian lore. The combination of warlike prowess with a passion for the chase is illustrated by the numerous hunting scenes sculptured on the monuments; and it may well be imagined that to the Hebrew mind Nimrod became an ideal personation of the proud monarchs who ruled the mighty empires on the Euphrates and the Tigris.

J. SKINNER.

NIMSHI.—Grandfather of king Jehu (1 K 9:16, 2 K 9:2, 14, 20, 2 Ch 22:7).

NINEVEH (Assyr. Ninā, Ninūa) is said in Gn. 10:11 to have been founded by Nimrod in Assyria. Nineveh was included in the dominions of Hammurabi, who restored the temple of Ishtar there. It was early an important city, and is frequently referred to in the royal inscriptions, but Sennacherib first raised it to the position of capital of Assyria. It lay on the E. of the Tigris, opposite the modern Mosul. Its chief remains are buried beneath the mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus, but the outline of the old walls can be traced. They enclosed some 1,800 acres, with a circumference of about 8 miles. The mound of Kouyunjik is separated from the mound of Nebi

Yunus by the Khoser, and overlies the palaces of Sennacherib to the S., and Ashurbanipal to the

N. The southern mound, Nebi Yunus, covers palaces of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. The Nineveh of Sennacherib’s day lay largely outside this area, and included the Rebit Ninūa, or Rehoboth-ir, which extended as far as Khorsa bad, where Sargon built a great city, Dūr-Sargon. The traditions of its great size may be due to a reminiscence of this outer girdle of inhabited country. The fall of Nineveh (B.C. 606) is referred to by Nahum and Zephaniah (2:13–15). 2 K 19:36 and Is 37:37 know it as the city of Sennacherib. For Jonah’s mission, see JONAH. Later, Tobit (1:10, 17 etc.) and Judith (1:1) refer to it, and the Ninevites are named in Mt 12:41, Lk 11:30 , 32.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

NIPHIS (1 Es 5:21) perhaps = Magbish in Ezr 2:30.

NISAN.—See TIME.

NISROCH.—An Assyr. deity in whose temple Sennacherib was worshipping when assassinated (2 K 19:37, Is 37:38).

Gesenius compared the name with the Arabic nisr (‘eagle), and conjectured that it referred to one of the eagle-headed divinities that appear in the bas-reliefs. In later times attempts have been made to identify Nisroch with Nusku (the fire-god)—whose name would naturally be most familiar in the construct form Nusuk,—and even with Marduk. But Nusku did not at this period occupy a sufficiently prominent position in the Assyr. pantheon; and the idea of Marduk, the great god of Babylon, being the patron of Sennacherib, the arch-enemy of that city, is manifestly incongruous. The deity that should logically hold this place is Ashur. Accordingly Prince suggests that Nisroch is a hybrid form due to a confusion of Ashur with Nusku. But comparison with the Greek forms seems to indicate that the original reading was something similar to Asorach. This Schrader explains as Ashurach, a hypothetical lenghtened form of Ashur. And Meinhold conjectures a compound (Ashur-Aku) of Ashur with Aku, the Sumerian name of the moon-god, whose Assyr. name Sin is an element in the name Sennacherib.

W. M. NESBIT.

NITRE, in its modern usage, denotes saltpetre, nitrate of potash, but the nitron or nitrum of the ancients was a different substance, natron, carbonate of soda. ‘Nitre’ occurs twice in AV. In

Pr 25:20 the effect of songs on a heavy heart is compared to the action of vinegar upon ‘nitre’ ( RVm ‘soda’). Vinegar has no effect upon saltpetre, but with carbonate of soda it produces effervescence. In Jer 2:22 ‘nitre’ (RV ‘lye’) is referred to as a cleansing agent. Here, again, natron rather than modern nitre suits the connexion.

NO.—Jer 46:25, Ezk 30:14, 15, 16, the name of Thebes (Diospolis Magna), Egyp. Nē: also No-amon, Nah 3:8, Amon (Ammon) being the god of the city. Nahum seems to imagine Thebes as resembling the cities of the less remote Delta surrounded by canals, which were their chief protection; in reality it lay on both banks of the Nile, with desert bounding it on either side, and water probably played little part in its defence. Thebes was of no importance until the Middle Kingdom (Dyns. 11, 12), during which the royal families were much connected with it. It was the capital of the local 17th Dyn., struggling against the Hyksos in the name of its god Ammon; and the great warriors of the succeeding 18th Dyn. enriched Thebes with the spoils of conquest, built temples there that surpassed all others in size and magnificence, and made it the greatest city of the Empire. Under the 19th and 20th Dynasties, Ammon was still the national god, and Thebes the capital of Egypt. Later, Memphis again took the first place, but Thebes was at least the religious centre of the wide-spread Ammon worship, and the temples retained much of their wealth until the sack of the city by king Ashurbanipal (about B.C. 666), referred to in Nahum. The temples of Thebes continued to be added to until insurrections under the Ptolemys led to its destruction and final abandonment as a city. In Jer 46:25 (RV) ‘I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt with her gods and their kings,’ Amon is probably not taken as the representative god of Egypt, a position which he no longer held in the 6th cent. B.C.: the passage rather indicates the completeness of Egypt’s fall by the punishment of the remote Thebes, which could not be accomplished till Lower Egypt was prostrate. The Theban Ammon was often entitled ‘Amen-Rē, king of the gods,’ being identified with the sun-god Rē. His figure is that of a man, generally coloured green. The ram was his sacred animal. In Ethiopia he was adopted as the national god, and his worship was established in the Oases, especially in the Oasis of Ammon ( Siwa), where his oracle was visited by Alexander.

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

NOADIAH—1. A Levite in time of Ezra (Ezr 8:33); called in 1 Es 8:68 Moeth. 2. A prophetess, who opposed Nehemiah (Neh 6:14).

NOAH.—1. Nōach, ‘rest.’ The name is explained in Gn 5:29 by a play on nicham, ‘to comfort’; but perhaps the reading supported by the LXX should be adopted, ‘This same shall give us rest.’ In one tradition Noah is the hero of the Flood, and answers to Ut-napishtim in the Bab. legend. See DELUGE. Ut-napishtim was translated to immortality; and this is perhaps referred to in 6:9b (cf. 5:24 and see ENOCH) . In another tradition he is the discoverer of the art of making wine (9:20–27). Elsewhere in the Bible, besides the references to the Flood, Noah is mentioned in 1 Ch 1:4, Ezk 14:14, 20, Lk 3:36. 2. Nō‘āh ( Nu 26:38, 27:1, 36:11, Jos 17:8). One of the daughters of Zelophehad, of the tribe of Manasseh. They claimed their father’s inheritance because he had died leaving no sons. It was given to them, on condition that they were not married into another tribe.

A. H. M‘NEILE.

NO-AMON.—See No.

NOB.—A place of this name is mentioned in three passages—1 S 21, 22, Neh 11:33, Is 10:32 (text not quite certain). The context in the two latter passages points to a place near Jerusalem. In 1 Sam., David passes Nob, which has become ‘the city of priests’ after the destruction of Shiloh, on his way from Saul (in Gibeah, wh. see) to Gath; this would suit a site near Jerusalem, though it does not demand such a position, unless, indeed, we infer (cf. 1 S 20:6) that David went to Nob with the intention of proceeding to Bethlehem (5 miles S. of Jerusalem).

There is no strong reason against assuming that in all three passages the same place is referred to. In Neh 11:33 and Is 10:32 Nob is closely connected with Anathoth, 2¹/₂miles N. of Jerusalem. Since in Is 10:32 Nob is the last point reached by the Assyrian army and the place from which it threatens Jerusalem, the site is best sought for on an eminence a little N. of the city, perhaps in particular (with Driver) on ‘the Ras el-Meshārif. about 1¹/₂miles S.W. of Anathoth, the ridge from the brow of which the pilgrim along the north road still catches his first view of the holy city.’ The name has not survived; and the identification suggested stands or falls with the correctness of the Hebrew text in Is 10:32.

G. B. GRAY.

NOBAH.—1. The clan name of the Israelites who conquered the city of Kenath (wh. see). 2. A place named with Jogbehah in the account of Gideon’s pursuit of Zebah and Zalmunna (Jg

8:11) , possibly also in Nu 21:30, where the Syr. reads ‘Nobah which is on the desert,’ instead of ‘Nophah which reacheth unto Medeba.’ This may have been the original settlement of the clan of that name. It should be sought, probably, near the upper reaches of the Jabbok; but the site has not been recovered.

W. EWING.

NOBAI.—One of those who sealed the covenant (Neh 10:19). Cf. NEBO, 1.

NOD.—According to Gn 4:16, the country in which Cain the fratricide took up his abode after his sentence of banishment. The place is unknown. It is probably connected in some way etymologically with the epithet nād of v. 14 (RV ‘wanderer’). The addition’ eastward of Eden’ is of little help for its location.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

NODAB.—The name of a tribe mentioned in 1 Ch 5:19, along with Naphish and Jetur, as among the foes encountered and subdued by the Reubenites. A comparison with various readings of LXX shows that the vowels of the word are uncertain. An Identification with the Nabatæans is excluded both on phonological grounds and by the fact that the latter, whose position was in any case too remote from Reuben, did not appear in history till long after the tribal period of the Hebrews had come to an end. Somewhat more plausible is a combination with a modern village Nudēbe in the Hauran.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

NOEBA (1 Es 5:31) = Nekoda Ezr 2:48, Nekodan 1 Es 5:37.

NOGAH.—One of David’s sons, born at Jerusalem (1 Ch 3:7, 14:6).

NOHAH.—Fourth ‘son’ of Benjamin (1 Ch 8:2). See also MENUHAH.

NOISOME.—‘Noisome’ is literally ‘annoy-some.’ The adj. means ‘offensive,’ ‘injurious’ in AV; the word is now rather rarely used, but when it is used it means ‘loathsome’ rather than ‘hurtful.’

NOOMA (1 Es 9:35) = Nebo in Ezr 10:42.

NOPH.—See MEMPHIS.

NOPHAH.—See NOBAH.

NORTH COUNTRY, LAND OF THE NORTH.—A phrase of somewhat vague

application, but denoting in a general fashion—1. The source or region from which dangerous foes were to come upon Palestine (so in Jer 6:22, 10:22, Zec 6:6, 8). 2. The regions to which the people of Israel or Judah had been exiled, and whence they were to be restored (so in Jer 3:18, 16:16, 23:8, 31:8, Zec 2:6). 3. Northern Syria (so Jer 46:10). The last-named Instance explains itself. The other applications of the term may be further illustrated by the usage of the word ‘north’ generally in OT. Here it is sufficient to recall the general fact that, while in the early history of Israel the land was invaded by many small peoples from the east and south, after the rise of the Assyrian and Chaldæan powers the attacks were made by larger armies which came in the course of their march down through Syria or the Mediterranean coast-land, the eastern desert route being impossible. Deportations of captives were naturally effected by the same routes, and by the same routes they would return. Thus, though Babylonia was in the same latitude as

Palestine, it was included among the countries of the ‘north.’

J. F. M‘CURDY.

NOSE, NOSTRILS (’aph is the usual word; něchīrīm only in Job 41:20; nachar in Job

39:20, AV ‘nostrils,’ RV, correctly, ‘snorting’).—To have a flat, or more probably ‘slit’ nose (Lv 21:16), disqualified a man for the making of offerings. The nose is the organ of the breath by which men live (Gn 2:7 etc.). The breath is easily stopped or expelled, hence the fact signifies the transiency of human life (Is 2:22). Excited breathing, with distention of the nostrils when moved by indignation, led to the nose being used fig. for anger (Gn 27:45, and very often), Ezk 8:17 refers to the custom of putting a twig to the nose, apparently in idolatrous worship, the significance of which is now obscure. For ‘nose-ring,’ see ORNAMENTS, § 2.

W. EWING.

NOUGHT.—See NAUGHT; and notice, further, the phrase ‘set at nought’ (Pr 1:25, Mk 9:12). ‘To set’ is ‘to value,’ and ‘nought’ is ‘nothing,’ so the phrase means to reckon of no value.

NOVICE.—In 1 Ti 3:5 it is enjoined that the bishop must not be a novice. The Gr. word (neophytos, lit. ‘newly planted’) was afterwards used in the technical sense of one who has not yet taken religious vows. Here it is general—one newly introduced into the Christian community.

NUMBER

1. Notation.—The decimal scale of notation was used by the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and, so far as we know, by the other nations mentioned in the Bible, i.e. they reckoned by units, tens, hundreds, etc.

2. Variety and range of numerical terminology.—The Heb. language expressed the integers from one to any amount by words denoting units, tens, a hundred, two hundred, a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, and by combinations of these words. Thus the highest number expressed by a single word is twenty thousand, the word used meaning double ten thousand. The word ‘millions’ in AV of Gn 24:60 is a mistranslation; it should be ‘ten thousands’ as in RV. The number referred to in this verse,’ thousands of ten thousands,’ for the descendants hoped for from Rebekah, and the number of the angels in Dn 7:10, Rev 5:11, ‘thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him,’ if taken literally, would be the largest numbers mentioned in the Bible, but they are merely rhetorical phrases for countless, indefinitely large numbers. In Rev 7:9 the redeemed are ‘a great multitude which no man could number’ (cf. Gn 13:16)—the nearest approach which the Bible makes to the mathematical idea of infinity.

The largest literal number in the Bible is the number of Israelites fit for warlike service, ascertained by David’s census as 1,100,000, in addition to the men of Judah 470,000 (1 Ch 21:6). In 2 S 24:9, however, the numbers are 800,000 and 500,000 respectively. Close to this comes the army of Zerah (2 Ch 14:9), ‘a thousand thousand,’ i.e. 1,000,000; and in 2 Ch 17:12ff., Jehoshaphat has an army in five divisions, of 300,000, 280,000, 200,000, 200,000, 180,000 respectively. The number of fighting men amongst the Israelites is given in Nu 2:32 as 603,550; and later on in Nu 26:51 as 601,730.

Hebrew also possessed a few special forms for the ordinals, first, second, etc., and to denote ‘seven times,’ etc.; in other cases, especially for the higher numbers, the cardinals are used.

There are also a few words for fractions, ‘a third,’ ‘a quarter.”

The Biblical Greek calls for no special comment; the writers had at their disposal the ordinary resources of Hellenistic Greek. We may, however, call attention to the disputed rendering in Mt 18:22, where RV has ‘seventy times seven,’ RVm ‘seventy times and seven.’

3. Symbols.—In the Heb. text of the OT, and also for the most part in the Gr. text of the NT, numbers are denoted by words. This method is also the only one used in the two ancient Heb. inscriptions—the Moabite Stone (rather later than Ahab), and the Siloam inscription (usually ascribed to the time of Hezekiah). As the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Phœnicians used figures as well as words to denote numbers, it is possible that the Israelites also had arithmetical figures; but at present there is no positive evidence of such a usage.

In later times the Jews used consonants as numerical signs; the units from one to nine were denoted by the first nine letters, the tens from ten to ninety by the next nine, and the hundreds from one hundred to four hundred by the remaining four letters. Other numbers were denoted by combinations of letters. A curious feature of this system is that the natural combination for 15, viz. Yod = 10, He = 5, was not used because’ Yod, He,’ or Yah was a form of the sacred name Yahweh, which might not be pronounced; accordingly Teth = 9 and Waw = 6 were substituted. This system is still commonly used to number the chapters and verses in Heb. Bibles. A similar system was also used by the Greeks, and is occasionally found in the NT; thus the Number of the Beast, 666, in Rev 13:18, is written by means of three letters.

4. Arithmetic.—There is no evidence of proficiency in arithmetic beyond the simplest operations, but we have examples of addition in connexion with the census in the wilderness, the numbers of the separate tribes being given first and then the total (Nu 1:22ff., 26:7ff.); subtraction is referred to in Lv 27:18; an instance of multiplication is Lv 25:8, 7 × 7 = 49; and Lv 25:50 implies a kind of rule of three sum.

5. Round Numbers.—As in other languages, ‘round numbers,’ exact tens, hundreds, thousands, etc., must often have been used by the Israelites, on the understanding that they were only approximately accurate; and in the same way smaller numbers were sometimes used indefinitely for ‘a few’; cf. our ‘half a dozen.’ For Instance, the exact ten thousands of

Jehoshaphat’s armies given above are doubtless round numbers. Again, in Lv 26:8, ‘five of you shall chase a hundred,’ merely means, ‘a handful of you shall put to flight many times your own number.’ This indefinite use of a small number is specially common where two consecutive units are given as alternatives, e.g. Is 17:6, ‘two or three,’ ‘four or five.’ A variety of this idiom is the use of two consecutive units to Introduce emphatically the higher of the two; e.g. Pr 30:21 ‘For three things the earth doth tremble, and for four which it cannot bear’; then four things are enumerated. In addition to hundreds and thousands and ten thousands, the most common number used in this approximate way is ‘forty’: people constantly live or reign for ‘forty years’ or multiples of forty years. It is a matter of opinion how far the numerous ‘sevens,’ ‘tens,’ and ‘twelves’ were originally intended as exact numbers. Probably, however, in many cases what were originally round numbers were taken afterwards to be exact. For instance, David’s reign is given as 40 years, 2 S 5:4; in the next verse this period is explained as made up of 7¹/₂years at Hebron and 33 at Jerusalem—an explanation which implies that, apart from some odd months, the 40 years were the actual length of the reign. There are some indications, too. that the various 40’s and 80’s were added in with other numbers to obtain a continuous chronology. Again, in Nu 3:39 the census gives 22,000 Levites, which one would naturally understand as a round number; but in vv. 43–51 it is taken as an exact number, inasmuch as it is ordained that because the 22,273 firstborn exceed the Levites by 273, redemption-money shall be paid for the surplus.

In view of the references to captains of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens in Dt 1:15, it has been suggested that these terms are sometimes not numerals, but names corresponding to our regiment, company, squad, etc., and denoting bodies of men whose numbers varied. ‘Thousand’ especially has been held to be a term denoting ‘tribe’ or ‘clan’ (see Jg 6:15, 1 S 10:19); so that ‘a thousand’ might contain comparatively few men. This view has been applied to make the census in the Bk. of Numbers more credible by reducing the total amounts; but it is clear that the narrative as it stands intends ‘thousand’ to be a numeral, and does not use the word for a ‘clan.’

6. Accuracy of numbers.—Without attempting an exhaustive consideration of the accuracy of numbers as given by the original authors, we may point out that we should not expect a large measure of mathematical accuracy even in original numbers. Often, as we have seen, they are apparently given as round numbers. Moreover, in the case of large numbers they would seldom be ascertained by careful enumeration. The numbers of armies—especially hostile armies—of slain, and so forth, would usually he given on a rough estimate; and such estimates are seldom accurate, but for the most part exaggerated. Moreover, primitive historical criticism revelled in constructing hypothetical statistics on the slightest data, or, to put the matter less prosaically, the Oriental imagination loved to play with figures, the larger the better.

But apart from any question as to the accuracy of the original figures, the transmission of the text by repeated copying for hundreds and thousands of years introduces a large element of uncertainty. If we assume that numbers were denoted by figures in early times, figures are far more easily altered, omitted, or added than words; but, as we have seen, we have at present no strong ground for such an assumption. But even when words are used, the words denoting numbers in Hebrew are easily confused with each other, as in English. Just as ‘eight’ and ‘eighty’ differ only by a single letter; so in Hebrew, especially in the older style of writing, the addition of a single letter would make ‘three’ into ‘thirty, etc. etc. And, again, in copying numerals the scribe is not kept right by the context as he is with other words. It was quite possible, too, for a scribe to have views of his own as to what was probable in the way of numbers, and to correct what he considered erroneous.

A comparison of the various manuscripts, versions, etc., in which our books have been preserved, shows that numbers are specially subject to alteration, and that in very many cases we are quite uncertain as to what numbers were given in the original text, notably where the numbers are large. Even where the number of a body of men, the length of a period, etc., are given twice over or oftener in different passages of the Bible itself, the numbers are often different; those in Chronicles, for instance, sometimes differ from those in Samuel and Kings, as in the case of David’s census mentioned above. Then, as regards manuscripts, etc., we may take one or two striking instances. The chief authorities for the text of the Pentateuch are the Heb. text in Jewish MSS, the Hebrew text in Samaritan MSS, and the Greek translation, the Septuagint. Now the numbers connected with the ages of the patriarchs are largely different in these three authorities; e.g. in the Jewish text Methuselah lives to the age of 969, and is the longest lived of the patriarchs; in the Samaritan he lives only to be 720, and is surpassed by many of the other patriarchs; and the interval from the Creation to the Flood is 2262 years in the Septuagint, 1656 in the Jewish text, 1307 in the Samaritan text. Again, the number of persons on board the ship on which St. Paul was shipwrecked is given in some MSS as 276, and in others as 76 (Ac 27:37); and similarly the number of the Beast is variously given as 666 and as 616 (Rev 13:18).

The probability that many mistakes in numbers have been introduced into the Bible by copyists in the course of the transmission of the text has long been admitted. For instance, in the fifth edition of Horne’s Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, published in 1825, a thoroughly old-fashioned apologetic work, we are told that ‘Chronological differences,’ i.e. discrepancies, ‘do undoubtedly exist in the Scriptures.… Differences in chronology do not imply that the sacred historians were mistaken, but they arise from the mistakes of transcribers or expositors’; and again, ‘It is reasonable to make abatements, and not always to insist rigorously on precise numbers, in adjusting the accounts of scriptural chronology’ (i. 550 f.).

7. Favourite numbers and their symbolism.—Naturally the units, and after them some of the even tens, hundreds, and thousands, were most frequently in use, and came to have special associations and significance, and a fraction would in some measure share the importance of its corresponding unit, e.g. where ‘four’ occurred often we should also expect to meet with a ‘fourth.’

One, suggesting the idea of uniqueness, self-sufficiency, and indivisibility, is specially emphasized in relation to the Divine Unity: ‘Jahweh our God, Jahweh is one’ (Dt 6:4); and similarly Eph 4:5f. ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father’; and other Like passages.

Two.—There were two great lights; men frequently had two wives (Lamech, Jacob,

Elkanah); two sons (Abraham, Isaac, Joseph); two daughters (Lot, Laban, Saul). Or again, where a man had one wife, there was a natural couple; and so with animals; in one account of the Flood they go in ‘two by two.’ Two men often went together, e.g. Joshua’s spies (Jos 2:1); and the Twelve and the Seventy went out by twos. The fact that men have two eyes, hands, etc., also gave a special currency to the number. Two objects or animals are often required for ritual purposes (e.g. Lv 14:22). There were two tables of stone. Similarly, a half would be a familiar fraction; it is most common in ‘the half tribe of Manasseh.’

As sets of two were common in nature and in human society, so in a somewhat less degree were sets of three, and in a continuously lessening degree sets of four, five, etc. etc. In each case we shall refer only to striking examples.

Three.—Three is common in periods; e.g. David is offered a choice between three days’ pestilence, three months’ defeat, and three years’ famine (1 Ch 21:12; 2 S 24:18 has seven years); Christ is ‘three days and three nights’ in the tomb (Mt 12:40, cf. Jn 2:19).

Deities often occur in groups of three, sometimes father, mother, and child; e.g. the Egyptian Osiris, Isis, and Horus. There are also the Babylonian triads, e.g. Bel, Anu, and Ea. Division into three is common; an attacking army is often divided into three parts, e.g. Gideon’s (Jg 7:16; cf. also Rev 8:10, 12).

Four.—The square, as the simplest plane figure, suggests four, and is a common shape for altars, rooms, etc.; hence four corners, pillars, the four winds, the four quarters of the earth, N.,

S., E., W. Irenæus argues that there must be four canonical Gospels because there are four cherubim, four winds, and four quarters of the earth.

Five, Ten, and multiples obtain their currency through the habit of reckoning in tens, which again is probably derived from counting on the ten fingers. The fraction tenth is conspicuous as the tithe; and fifth and tenth parts of measures occur in the ritual.

Six, Twelve, and multiples are specially frequent in reference to time: 12 months, and its half, six months, 12 hours, sixth hour, etc., partly in connexion with the 12 signs of the Zodiac, and the approximate division of the solar year into 12 lunar months. It is suggested that the number 12 for the tribes of Israel was fixed by the Zodiac; in the lists the number 12 is obtained only by omitting Levi or Dan, or by substituting Joseph for Ephraim and Manasseh. When the number 12 was established for the tribes, its currency and that of its multiples were thus further extended; e.g. the 12 Apostles, the 144,000 of the Apocalypse, etc.

Seven and multiples.—A specially sacred character is popularly ascribed to the number seven; and although the Bible does not expressly endorse this idea, yet it is supported by the frequent occurrence of the number in the ritual, the sacred seventh day, the Sabbath; the sacred seventh year, the Sabbatical year; the Jubilee year, the year following seven times seven years; the seven-branched candlestick; sevenfold sprinkling (Lv 4:6 etc.); seven lambs offered (Nu 28:11 ff.); forgiveness till 70 times 7 (Mt 18:22); the seven churches of Asia; seven angels; seven stars, etc.; fourteen generations (Mt 1:17); 70 descendants of Jacob (Ex 1:5); 70 years’ captivity, etc. (Jer 25:11, Dn 9:2, Zec 7:5); 70 missioners (Lk 10:1). A similar use of ‘seven’ is found in the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian religions, and is often derived from astral worship of the seven heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and the five planets known to the ancients. It is also connected with the seven-day week as roughly a quarter of the lunar month, seven being the nearest integer to the quarter of 29¹/₂. The Pleiades also were thought of as seven (cf. Am 5:8).

Eight.—There were eight persons in the ark; a boy was circumcised on the eighth day.

Ezekiel’s ritual has a certain predilection for the number eight.

Forty.—This number apparently owes its vogue to the view that 40 was the approximate or perhaps average length of a generation; at least this is a common view. It is a little difficult to reconcile with the well-known Oriental custom of early marriage. The number might perhaps be obtained by taking the average of the years of a man’s age at which his children were born, though such an explanation does not appear very probable. Or the use of 40 for a generation might be a relic of the period when the youngest born succeeded to the family tent and sacra. At any rate 40 is well established as a moderate round number between ‘a few’ and ‘a very great many.’ Thus, in addition to the numerous reigns, oppressions, and deliverances of 40, 80 years, etc., Isaac and Esau marry at the age of 40; there are 40 years of the wandering; Ezekiel’s 40 years’ captivity (29:11); 40 days was the period Moses spent in the Mount, Elijah and Christ fasted in the wilderness, etc.

A certain mystical value is attached to numbers in later Jewish and Christian philosophy and superstition, perhaps due partly to the ideas suggested by the relations of numbers to each other, and to the practical power of arithmetic; the symbols which aided men so effectually seemed to have some inherent force of their own. Or, again, if ‘seven’ is sacred, to pronounce a formula seven times must be more effective than to pronounce it six or eight times.

Great importance is attached to numbers in the mediæval Jewish mystical system, the Kabbala. There are ten sephiroth or primary emanations from God, one original sephira, and three derivative triads; there are twelve channels of Divine grace; 613 commandments, etc.

8. Gematria, a Hebraized form of the Greek geometria, used to mean ‘reckoning by numbers,’ was a late development of which there are traces in the OT. It consisted in indicating a word by means of the number which would be obtained by adding together the numerical values of the consonants of the word. Thus in Gn 14:14 Abraham has 318 ‘trained servants,’ 318 is the sum of the consonants of the name of Abraham’s steward Eliezer in its original Hebrew form.

The number is apparently constructed from the name.

The Apocalyptic number of the Beast is often explained by Gematria, and 666 has been discovered to be the sum of the numerical values of the letters of some form or other of a large number of names written either in Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin. Thus the Beast has been identified with hundreds of persons, e.g. Mohammed, Luther, the Pope, Napoleon I., Napoleon III. etc., each of whom was specially obnoxious to the ingenious identifier. Probably by a little careful manipulation, any name in some form or other, in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, could be made by Gematria to yield 666. The two favourite explanations are Lateinos = Latinus ( the Roman Empire or Emperor), and Nero Cœsar. The latter has the special advantage that it accounts not only for 666, but also for the various reading 616 mentioned above; as Neron Cœsar it gives 666, and as Nero Cœsar, 616.

W. H. BENNETT.

NUMBERS, BOOK OF.—1. The Book of Numbers forms the sequel to the Book of

Exodus; it carries on the history of the Israelites from the stay at Sinai till the arrival at the borders of Moab. The name ‘Numbers’ is due to the repeated numberings in chs. 1, 3, 4, 26. The book is composed of writings from the prophetic schools of J and E, and the Priestly school of P. One passage is from D—21:33–35 = Dt 3:1–8 . A minute analysis of the sources, not only distinguishing J, E, and P, but also separating the different strata of P, is necessary for a full understanding of the book. The present article, however, can only accept in broad outline the results reached by scholars. The reader is referred to The Hexateuch ed. by Carpenter and Battersby, the art. ‘Numbers’ by the latter in Hastings’ DB iii., and Gray’s Com. on Numbers.

2. Although the narrative begins at Sinai and ends in Moab, the period of the 40 years’ wanderings is a blank, and the events are confined to the two periods before and after it. The book consists of three parts: 1–10:10, 10:11–21:9, 21:10–36:13.

A. 1:1–10:19. Ordinances at Sinai.—The section is entirely from P.

Contents.—Chs. 1–4: (a) The census; (b) arrangement of the camp; (c) functions of the Levites. Chs. 5, 6: Laws concerning (d) three unclean classes of persons who must be excluded from the camp (5:1–4); (e) some priestly dues (5–10); (f) the ordeal of jealousy (11–31); (g) the law of the Nazirite (6:1–21); (h) the priests’ formulas of blessing (22–27). (i) Ch. 7: The offerings (identical in each case) of the twelve tribal princes. (j) Ch. 8:1–4: The golden lampstand. (k) Ch. 8:5–26: Dedication of the Levites, and age of their service. (l) Ch. 9:1–14:

The supplementary Passover, (m) Ch. 9:15–23: The cloud over the Tabernacle, (n) Ch. 10:1–10: The two silver trumpets.

Notes.—Two passages in this section are retrospective, viz. 7 and 9:1–14 . The rest cover the last 19 days (1:1, 10:11) spent at Sinai.

(a) The census is referred to by anticipation in Ex 30:12, 38:26. The strange position of Gad in the lists (1:20–47 , 26) is explained by the position assigned to it in ch. 2, next to Reuben and Simeon on the S. of the camp. The figures of the census are artificial and impossible; they are investigated by Gray, Numbers, pp. 10–15. (b) The arrangement of the camp is based upon the same principle as that in the ideal picture of Ezekiel (ch. 48). (c) The Levites are instituted as a class of priests’ servants—a conception quite at variance with all earlier representations. They are accepted by J″ in lieu of the firstborn of Israel. The transport duties of the three Levitical families, Kohath, Gershon, and Merari, are detailed. Notice that the period of service in 4:2–20 differs from that in 8:23–26. (d) The three classes are dealt with in detail in Lv 13, 15 and Nu 19 respectively, (e) The section is supplementary to Lv 5:20–26. It deals with the cases in which the injured party is dead, and there is no next-of-kin. It further lays down that every sacred gift is to belong to the particular priest to-whom it is paid, (f) A woman suspected by her usband of adultery which cannot be proved, is made to drink a potion which will be harmful if she is guilty, but will result in fruitfulness if she is innocent. This and the Nazirite vow (g) are instances of very ancient practices which have survived, in the form of law, only in P. (h) The priestly blessing is probably earlier in origin than P, and may have been used in the Temple before the Exile. Ps 67 appears to be influenced by it. (i) See Ex 25:31–40, 27:20f.; (j) reads like a later expansion of the commands in chs. 3, 4.

B. 10:11–21:9 . From Sinai to the desert W. of the ‘Arabah.

Contents.—(a) 10:11–28 P. The move to the Wilderness of Paran in marching order. (b) 10:29–36 J. Departure from the mountain; Moses asked Hobab to accompany them. Words which Moses used to address to the ark. (c) 11:1–3 E. Taberah. (d) 11:4–35 JE. Kibrothhattaavah; the 70 elders, Eldad and Medad; the quails; Hazeroth. (e) 12:1–15 E. Aaron and Miriam attacked Moses; Miriam’s leprosy. (f) 12:13 J. The move to the wilderness of Paran. (g)

13, 14 JEP. The sending of the spies; their evil report, and its sequel. 15 P. Laws concerning: (h) Meal-offerings and libations (1–16), (i) cake of first of ‘ărīsōth (17–21), (j) propitiation for sins of Ignorance (22–31), (k) punishment for Sabbath-breaking (32–38), (l) tassels (37–41), (m) 16 JEP. Rebellion of Korah (P) and of Dathan. Abiram, and On (JE). (n) 17 P. Aaron’s rod budded, (o) 18:1–7 P. Levites to be the priests’ servants, (p) 18:3–32 P. Dues to the Levites. (q) 19 P. Ritual of the red cow, to remove defilement by the dead. (r) 20:1–13 JEP. The move to the

Wilderness of Zin (P); Miriam died at Kadesh (JE); want of water (JE); the sin of Moses and

Aaron at Meribah (P). (s) 20:14–21 JE. Edom refused passage through their territory. (t) 20:22– 29 P. Aaron died at Mt. Hor, and was succeeded by Eleazar. (u) 21:1–3 JE. Hormah. (v) 21:4–9 JEP. Departure from Mt. Hor (P); circuit round Edom; and the bronze serpent (JE).

Notes.—(b) Hobab, not Reuel, is Moses’ father-in-law; cf. Jg 4:11 (RVm). Hobab’s answer after v. 32 has been lost; but Jg 1:15 makes it probable that he consented to accompany them. (d) Into the story of the quails have been interpolated vv. 11f., 14f., and also the account of the elders, vv. 18f., 24b–30 Some think that the former should follow Ex 33:1–3 and the latter Ex 33:7–11. (g) The narratives of JE and of P have been combined. In JE spies went to the S. of Canaan, as far as Hebron only. They brought back a cluster of grapes, and said that the land was fertile, but invincible with its giants and great cities. Caleb alone declared that they would be able to conquer it. The people determined to return to Egypt under another captain. Moses entreated J″ not to smite them with pestilence. J″ consented, but condemned all except Caleb to die in the wilderness. They were commanded to go by the Red Sea, whereupon they suddenly repented, and made an attack upon the Amalekites and Canaanites, but were repulsed with loss. In P, the spies, whose names are given, went through the whole of Canaan unmolested. They reported that the land was so barren [as it was in the days of P] that its inhabitants could not live. The people murmured, but Caleb and Joshua [here first mentioned in P] tried to encourage them. The glory of J″ appeared, and the people were condemned to wander 40 years, in which all over 20 years of age, except Caleb and Joshua, should die. (h) A scale of amounts of meal, oil, and wine to accompany various animals in sacrifice. It is a later, and more carefully graduated, system than that in Ezk 46:5–7, 11, 14. (i) ‘ărīsōth perhaps means barley meal. ‘First’ appears to refer to the first lump of dough made from the material. (m) Distinct incidents from JE and from P have been woven together. In JE a rebellion was raised by some Reubenites—Dathan, Abiram, and On—against the civil authority of Moses. Moses warned the people to depart from the tents of the conspirators, who were then swallowed up in the earth. In P, Korah with 250 princes, who were representatives of all the secular tribes, rebelled against the claim for the special sanctity of the tribe of Levi. At J″’s challenge they burned incense on censers in front of the Tabernacle; the whole congregation were present, and the glory of J″ appeared. Moses told the mass of the people to depart from the Tabernacle, and the fire of J″ devoured the 250 men. On the next day the people assembled, and murmured against Moses and Aaron. A plague began, which was checked by Aaron’s action in running among the people with a lighted censer. The superiority of the tribe of Levi was then vindicated by the budding of Aaron’s staff (ch. 17), and the dues to be paid to the Levites were laid down (ch. 18). Into P’s story, however, later passages have been interpolated (16:8–11, 18f., 17:1–5) , which represent Korah’s company as Levites, who rebel against the claim of superior sanctity for the family of Aaron. (r) The events are at the end of the wanderings, but no movements have been recorded since the events before the 40 years (ch. 13). The difficulties with regard to Kadesh and the wanderings may be studied in Driver, Deut. pp. 31–33. The Meribah narrative in the present section is a combination of J and P. (A Meribah story from E is combined with a Massah story from J in Ex 17:1–7.) The sin of Moses and Aaron has not been fully preserved; v. 10 relates only ill-temper (referred to in Ps 106:32f.), though v. 12 describes it as unbelief, and 27:14 as rebellion. (s) The sequel of this is 21:4b, 12f. (JE), (u) Hormah is connected with hērem,‘ban,’ because of the vow to destroy—ban—the Canaanite cities. The section appears to be misplaced, for it is difficult to understand why the Israelites should have turned away from Canaan immediately after such a striking victory. (v) The story was probably to explain the existence of the bronze serpent which Hezekiah afterwards destroyed; it is difficult to see how such a figure in bronze could have been manufactured in the desert with the rapid haste which the occasion would demand

C. 21:10–36 . Marches and events E. of the ‘Arabah and the Jordan.

Contents.—(a) 21:10–30 JEP. Itinerary, and two songs. (b) 21:21–32 JE. Amorites refused passage. and were defeated. Song of triumph, (c) 21:33–35 D. Defeat of Og. (d) 22:1 P. Arrival at Moab. (e) 22:2–24:25 JE. Balaam. (f) 25:1–5 JE. Immorality and idolatry owing to seduction by the Moabite women; the worship of the Baal of Peor. (g) 25:8–18 P. Perpetual priesthood promised to the line of Phinehas for his zeal in killing the Israelite and the Midianitess. (h) 26 P. The second census, (i) 27:1–11 P. Case arising out of the daughters of Zelophehad. (j) 27:12–23 P. Moses bidden to prepare for death; Joshua appointed to succeed him. (k) 28, 29 P. A scale of public offerings. (l) 30 P. Conditions of validity of a vow. (m) 31 P. The war with Midian. (n) 32 P. Gad and Reuben, and (J) Manasseh, settled on the E. of Jordan. (o) 33:1–49 P. Itinerary from Egypt to Moah. 33:50–36 P. Laws relative to the settlement in Canaan, viz.: (p) 33:50–56. Destruction of Canaanitish objects of worship, and division of land by lot. (q) 34:1–15 . The boundaries of Canaan. (r) 34:16–29. Persons to superintend the allotment. (s) 35:1–5 . Levitical cities. (t) 35:9–34. Cities of refuge. (u) Ch. 36. Heiresses (Zelophehad’s daughters) not to marry outside their own tribe.

Notes.—(a) vv. 10, 11a P take the Israelites from Mt. Hor straight to a point on the E. of the ‘Arabah, apparently disregards the detour by the Red Sea and by the E. of Edom. Vv. 11b–20 E contain places on the northward march from Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Akabah; Dt 10:6–9 gives the previous march southward from Kadesh. (b) The last clause of the song (290) may be a gloss. The whole interpretation of the song depends upon its presence or absence (see Gray on the passage). (c) Practically identical with Dt 3:1–3; the only passage from D in the book. (g) The introduction of a Midianitess can hardly have occurred in Moab. The mention of foreign wives in v. 1 may have caused the passage to be placed here. The narrative is only partially preserved, for nothing is said of the sending of ‘the plague’ (8f.). (j) Vv. 12, 13 are closely related to Dt 32:48–50; whether they are incorporated in, or derived from, Dt. is uncertain.

(k) The scale of offerings incidentally contains a list of the fixed feasts or sacred seasons, viz. Sabbath

(28:9f.). New Moon (11), Passover (16), Unleavened Cakes (17), Feast of Weeks (26), Feast of Trumpets (29:1), Day of Atonement (7), Feast of Booths (12–38). (l) These are concerned chiefly with women’s vows, which are treated nowhere else. (m) The story is of the nature of a midrash; the numbers of the Israelites, and of the slain and the spoils, are artificial; nothing is said of the march to Midian, or of the place of fighting. The narrative appears mainly intended to illustrate the rules of the distribution of booty (25–30), and the removal of uncleanness by contact with the dead (10–24). (n) The term ‘Gilead’ is very elastic. In 1–29 it refers to land south of the Jabbok, but in 39 to land north of it, while in Jos 22:9, 13 it covers the whole land E. of the Jordan. The towns assigned to Reuben and Gad conflict with P’s theory in

Jos 13:15–33 , which is represented in most maps of Palestine, according to which Gad is to the north and Reuben to the south of the N. end of the Dead Sea. In the present passage the towns of Reuben lie between Gadite towns situated to the N. and the S. of them. Vv. 39–42 (J) represent the Manassite settlement on the W. of Jordan as older than that on the E. The verses are a fragment, similar to Jg 1 and the older parts of Joshua. (o) The itinerary falls into four parts: 5–15 , Rameses to the Wilderness of Sinai; 15–35, thence to Ezion-geber on the E. arm of the Red Sea; 36, thence to Kadesh = Wilderness of Zin (one stage of 70 miles); 37–49, thence to the steppes of Moab. (p) The objects mentioned are ‘figured stones’ (if that is the right rendering; Lv 26:1 only), molten images, and ‘high places.’ (q) The boundaries are ideal, at least on the west, for the Israelites never occupied a spot on the coast until Simon Maccabæus captured Joppa (1 Mac 14:5). (s) The Levites receive 48 plots of land, each of about 207 acres, and containing a town and pasture land. Jos 21 states the number of plots allotted in each tribe. Like Ezekiel’s scheme (48:8–14), the arrangement is purely ideal—for (1) in a mountainous country like Palestine plots of 207 acres would be impossible; (2) earlier writings snow that Levites had no landed property, but were commended to the charity of the rest of Israel; (3) priests are found living in such towns as Nob, Shiloh, and Bethel, which are not in the list of Levitical cities. (t) The earlier laws of asylum are given in Ex 21:12–14, Dt 19:1–13; the development of the procedure is noteworthy. (u) A supplement to 27:1–11.

3. Broadly speaking, the value of JE’s narratives lies in their portrayal of character, that of P’s in its embodiment of ecclesiastical ideas. In JE the character of Moses is strongly marked, in its strength and its occasional weakness: e.g. his humble piety (12:3), his trust in J″ (10:29–32) , his faithfulness to and intimacy with Him (12:6–8), his affection for his people (11:2, 10–15, 21:7), his generosity and public spirit (11:27–29, 12); and with this his despondency (11:10–15) and provocation by the people (parts of 20:1–13) . And no less vivid is the portrayal of the character of the people—their dislike of restraint, their selfish murmurings, their vehement repentance followed by wilful self-assertion. The narratives of JE were not compiled for the sake of recording history; the compiler was a prophet with a keen sense of the religious meaning of history. And his view of personal character revealed in events is not an incidental, but a primary, element in his work. And side by side with this is his conception of the relation between J″ and Israel. J″, as Israel’s only God, commands every action and step in the drama; and obedience to Him is followed by prosperity, while disobedience always brings trouble.

The spontaneity and simplicity of the earlier narratives are in marked contrast with the artificial idealism of P. The writings which we know collectively as P extend over centuries, but they were one and all the work of ecclesiastics. Narratives and laws alike were methods of representing the hierocratic conditions either actually prevalent after the Exile, or contemplated by the writers as desirable. Ecclesiasticism entered also into their conceptions of J″. In early days any man might ‘meet’ with J″ and inquire of Him at the Tent, which was pitched outside the camp (Ex 33:7–11, E). But now the presence of J″ is protected from pollution by the sacred barrier of the priests and Levites, ‘that there be no wrath upon the congregation’ (Nu 1:53). Real matters of abiding consequence to man—sin, and J″’s attitude towards it, and the means of forgiveness—are hardly touched. And if this description seems to leave in P little of spiritual value, it must be answered that its value lies partly in the very evidence that it affords of the deadening influence produced upon spiritual life, and even upon literary art, by a narrow ecclesiasticism which has itself as its only aim. The age and the writings of the Priestly school are an invaluable background, to show up all the more clearly the brightness of the age which