NANEA
on the subjects :-W. R. Smith in JPhiZ. 9 75-roo and Jacobs,
Studies in Ri6f. Arch. (r894) chaps. 4 5 (Animal and Plant
Names); Noldeke in ZDMG 1886, pp. 148-157; 1888, pp.470:
487; Renan,' Des Noms thkophores apocopkes,'in K E J I , 161$,
M. Jastrow in / B L 1894, pp. 19 j?, XOI-127;19o>,p 82-105
(on compounds with losheth, -yak, and the name &muel);
Hommel A H T , and Die Siid-arabischm A Zterthrinrer (1899)
21-27 (on Ammi); Gray'sCriticisms of Hommel's AHTinExj.
1 8 9 7 ~ .173-190. ,Specially important for the subject of place-
namesare Stadea article in Z A I'W 1885, pp. 175.185, and yon
Gall aifisraditisclre KuZfst&Nen(1898). Further, for the com-
pardon of Hebrew with other Semitic names the following will
he found speciallyvaluable : Lidzharski, Hand6uch d. Nordsenr.
Ejigrap/tih; the notes i n C I S ; Del., P r o f . ; Hammer-Purg5tal1,
Ueber d. Namen d. A>aber, We. A r . Heid. G . B. G.
iv. The literature on t h e names of God is embarrassingly large.
On the name Yahw6 m a y be mentiqned WRS Pmph. (1882)~
pp.. $ j fl. ; Wellh. IJGW, 2 5 ; Dr. Recent Theories on t h e
Origin and Nature of the Tetraarammaton,'Sfud. Bib, 1, pp..f$;
Dalman, DerGottesnanze Ado~aiuimseineGes=h., 1889; Konig,
' Die forniell genet. Wechselbeziehungder beiden Worter Jahve
und Jahu,' Z A TW17 1 7 2 s ;.Lag. Psafteriuntjuxta He6rreos
Hieronynri, 1874 ; Or., 1879 ; Ubers., 1889 ; Baud1ssin.Stud.zur
sou.lieZ.-~esck.1(1876), pp. 181-254 ; Kuenen,Gor(sn(1669),1398
{ET same reference); Luhr, Uuterrch. zuin 8.Amos, zndapp..
Jadve Zebaoth' (tables showing where this name, in different
forms, occurs in OT, how @ translates, and on w h a t occasions it
is used) ; Giesebrecht,Die A T/icheSchZtzuqdes Gottrsnanrens
II. ihre refigionsgesch, Gmom'l. 1901. Illustrative ' Del., Par.
(1881); Pinches P S B A 15(1892j,13fi; W i G1136A; Hommel,
A H T 102 ; anb Exp.T, 1899, p. 42 ; &&e, i6. 1898, p. 522 ;
Philippi, Zt.J ?'8/kerpsyrlr., 14 (1883) 1 7 5 f " Jastrow Z A
10222fi, and Z A T l t J l t i ~fi; Stade,"Die E'ntsteh. 4;s V.
Israel,' A6h., 97fi-On the other divine names &I,Eloah, and
Elohim, Elyon Shaddai, etc., see the references in $0 108-124.
T. N. (§§ 1-86); G. 8. G. (I $ 125, i.-iii.); tali
87-106,
E. K. (@ 107-124); T. K. c.( § 125. iv.).
NANEA, RV Nanaaa (NLINAIA [AV]; Syr. d~),
the Grzcised form of Nan& or Nanai, a goddess
worshipped in Elymais or Elam, in whose temple,
according to 2 Macc. 113, Antiochus Epiphanes was
' by the deceit of Nanea's priests' (see MACCABEES, slain
SECOND, 7, col. 2876). In I Macc.61-4, indeed,
a different story is told, and the name of the deity whose
temple Antiochus sought t o plunder is not given.
Polybius (311 1 ) and, following him, Josephus (Ant.
xii. 9 1 ) give it as Artemis ; Appian (Syr. 66) as
Aphrodite. Nan&,however, was a primeval Babylonian
goddess-the only one of the great Sumerian (non-
Semitic) goddesses who still retained her rank as ' lady
of the temple Q-anna' in her city of Uruk (Erech).
Kudur-nanbundi, king of Elam, robbed &-anna of its
lady's image (about 2280 B .c.), and it remained at
Susa till AhR-BANI-PBL (p.v.) recovered it. This
accounts for the permanence of the cultus of Nana in
Elam. The Assyrians and Babylonians, however, did
not forget the goddess. Tiglath-pileser 111. sacrificed
to her under the title of 'lady of Babylon,' after a
victorious campaign against Babylonia ( K B ii. 67).
Originally distinct from IStar (Del. Par. 222), she came
t o be regarded as a form of Etar (cp E RECH ), so that
an identification with Artemis and Aphrodite lay close
at hand. See E LYMAIS , P ERSEPOLIS.
T w o mnre references IO Nan2 have been supposed in the OT.
Lagarde introduced her name hy averyarbitraryemendation into
Is. 65 I I (see F O RT UN E A N D DESTINY), and manv have reaarded
theobscure title u*wj ninn, ' t h e delight of wom;n,'as belonging
t o Nan6 (against which see Bevan Dnnief, 196).
For literature, cp C O T 2 rsgf.,'and add Maspero, Dawn of
Civ. 665-674 ; Ja\trow, K e f . 6ab. Ass. 81,85, 206. T. K. c.
NAOMI, better No6mi ('DJ??, ' my sweetness,' 3 79,
iii.c; N W ~ M E I N [B]. NOEMM, and A in 2 4 3 17
NOEMMEI, NOOMM€l[N] [A], NOOMl [L]), Wife Of
Elimelech of Bethlehem, a n d mother-in-law of Ruth
( R u t h l z f l ) ) . See RUTH.
NAPHATH-DOR (i~? nag, I K. 4 I I Rvmg., RV
'heights of D OR ' (q.v.).
NAPHISR, in I Ch. 819, AV NEPHISH (d'g!), a son of
~ S H M A E L ( ~ . Gen.2515
V.), I C ~1.3 1 5 1 9 ( ~ b @ e ~ [ B A E ] , 4 9 3 J ) , and the son was turned to stone (so Steuernagel).
-ee [DI.- @ I C [ L l ; in 5 1 9 N A @ E I C L I ~ L I I C , I ~[B], The geography would suit(see E DER [TOWER], R EUBEN).
N L I @ I C A I C , I N [AL]). T h e name may mean wide-
spread ' (cp h a m . ,791, Ass. n a p i l u ) ; it may also be a
distortion of n332, a collateral form of n-22 (=Nebaioth)
3331
NAPHTALI
presupposed by the Assyrian form Napiati (Schr. KCP
104). C p NEPHISIM. T. K. C.
NAPHISI ( NA@[E]IC[~]I [BA]), I Esd. 531 = Ezra
2 50. N EPHISIM .
NAPHOTH DOR (lis nb?),J o s h . 1 1 ~RVmg., R V
'heights of D OR ' (4.v.). Cp 2 below.
NAPHTALI ('?$a>, § 9 ; NE@hh[E]I [BKADFQLI.
-M [BKADFFL; in Is.91 (823) Aq. Sm. Th.]. -BIN
''NEPHTHALIM),
[Ra in Ps. 67 (68)28, .ep [E, Gen. 3081 ; in
Origin' Tob.1 I AV, NEPHTHALI, and in Mt.4 I ~ A V ,
the tribe settled between Issachar and
the northern Dan. Why it was grouped with Dan is not
clear (cp B ILHAH ). If the genealogical scheme that has
reached us is on the whole a n artificial device of compara-
tively late times,' the fact that Naphtalites and Danites
were together in the N. would suffice as a reason for mak-
ing them brothers. Indeed there need not always have
been a positive reason for such combinations. When a
company of about a dozen has to be broken u p into four
groups, even enemies may find themselves side by side :
every one has to be put somewhere. N o Naphtalite
traditions on the subject have been preserved. If, on the
other hand, the general genealogical system is in its main
points ancient, Naphtali's being a Bilhite clan may be
historically significant. Its brother Dan came from the
SW. of the Ephraim highlands. Is it possible that Naph-
did so too? The possibility has been suggested
( BILHAH). Indeed Steuernagel thinks he can point to
data that give it a certain plausibility. T h e Naphtalite
clan-names give no help : only one of them recurs any-
where-viz. Guni, which is also in the list of clans of
Gad, and Gad is Zilpite, not Bilhite (see ZILPAH). It
is noteworthy, however, that in the fragment treating of
Dan in Judg. 1 (v.34J) the towns mentioned are Aijalon
and Shaalbim, in the SW. of 'Joseph.' If, then,
Naphtali was once settled along with Dan in its southern
seat we should expect to be told of Canaanite cities in
the same district that Naphtali was not able to occupy.
Now the towns mentioned thus in w. 33 are Beth-shemesh
and Beth-anath. It has of course been usual to assume
that these must be in Galilee ; but no Beth-shemesh has
been identified there. On the other hand, there is a
well-known Beth-shemesh 2 m. from the Danite city
Zorah (see BETH-SHEMESH, I). T h e case for Beth-
anath is not so good ; but it is not unplausible. Beth-
anoth is mentioned in Josh. 15 59 as a city of Judah (see.
however, BETH-ANOTH), a n d there is Anathoth in
Benjamin. To point to the fact that Shamgar who
' smote of the Philistines 600 men,' like the great Danite
hero, is called ben Anath seems precarious. N o doubt
the lateness of the insertion of Judg. 3 3 1 , as Steuernagel
observes, does not preclude there being a n old story
behind i t ; but the matter is probably too obscure to
serve as evidence. Further it has to be remembered that
Egyptian lists seem t o mention not only a southern but
also a nothern Beth-anath, and that a Beth-shemesh is
said to have been a border city of Issachar. If Dan
and Naphtali ever were settled together on the SW. of
Ephraim, and if they grew out of the partition of a Bilhah
tribe, there should be some traces of the presence of a
Bilhah tribe. Now as a matter of fact there is a
Benjamite clan called Bilhan (cp B EN J AMIN , § 3),
which might be explained a s representing a remnant
left behind when the rest of the Bilhah tribe migrated
northwards. I n the same neighbourhood a certain land-
mark bore the name of Bohan the son of Reuben, who
was said to have usurped Bilhah and would in all likeli-
hood be said to have had a son of her. When we
remember the story of David it will seem natural that
it should be said that Reuben had to bear a curse (Gen.
Another support for the theory that Naphtali once
1 See the instructive discussion of Rernh. Luther in ZATW
21 I I [ I ~ o I ] . Cp now also Winckler, K A I1y 213, 217.
3332
 NAPHTALI
lived farther S. is found by Steuernagel, with some
diffidence, in Dt. 3323. On this theory Diir6m ( n n i )
can be taken in its usual Talmudic sense of the ShPphela
(see S OUTH ) : the words express the hope that Naphtali
may yet recover its old seat by the sea and in the
Daroma. Outside of Dt. 33, however, Darom occurs
only in Ezek., Job, and Eccles. Steuernagel, indeed,
argues that it is nevertheless probably an old word, for
the Diirdmii would not have been called ‘south ’ by Jews ;
but may ha{-e been as far from meaning ‘south’
a5 Negeb. This argument hardly strengthens the case.
On the other hand there is nothing positive against the
theory. It is part of a wider question (see T RIBE ).
How the name Naphtali was popularly explained is
not quite clear. Some one strove ; but who ? and with
2. Name. whom? and how? Apparently, not Jacob,
although the doubtful expression god’s
wrestlings,’ if that he the meaning, might very well
refer to such a story as that in Gen. 32.’ In the present
text the speaker is Rachel, and it is the rule in the case
of Jacob’s sons that the name is given by the mother.
If ’ wrestle’ be the meaning of the hapax legomenon
n->mq,2 Rachel wrestled with her sister (308) and came
out best. Was Reuben then in E Leah’s only son at
this time and so Rachel’s obtaining a second (Naphtali,
Dan being the first) constituted a victory (so Gunkel)?
That would explain how it was Reuben that found the
dudarm : he was at the time Jacobs only son. If, as
elsewhere, the verb means to act in a wily manner, per-
haps Tesf. xii. P a i r . , Napht., § I , correctly paraphrases
E’s meaning *because Rachel acted with guile and
substituted Bilha for herself. ’ Similar is the explanation
of Josephus (Ant. i. 197, 305) ’ a s if “ g o t by strata-
g e m ” (? p v x a v v r b s . var. lect. u p . , s u p . ) . because of the KadeS ’ have been made over to the Habiri may refer to
stratagem used against the fruitfulness of the sister ’ (6tb
r b dvrt7EXvduauOat r p b s 7rjv s h K v i a v 75s d6eh+js).
T h e meaning of the name Naphtali is not known.
If there was really a tribe Bilhah, which broke up into
two portions after leaving its southern seat, the part
called Dan may have come to bear the name of the
deity whose cult was seated where it finally ~ e t t l e d . ~ name.
T h e Bilhites who came to be known as Naphtalites‘
may similarly have taken their name from some later
seat. They may, for example, as it has been con-
jectured that the Asherites did (ASHER,§ 3 ) , have
halted for a time near the plain of Megiddo. There
is in that neighbourhood a place-name Naphath or
Naphoth-dor (the vocalisation is uncertain) which is
usually supposed to mean ‘ eminence.’ May Naphtali
be a derivative of Napht as Karmel seems to be of
Karrn? Naphtiili would then mean the people of the
Naphtal. Land (De Gids, Oct. 1871, ‘ De wording van
staat en godsdienst in het oude Israel,’ 20, n.) thought
so, and (independently?) Wright ( W a s Zsrael in E,qvpt P
251). It would be rash to assert that the difficulties5 Wherever the cities said to have been ceded to Tyre
are insuperable. Where to locate the Naphatn,
Naphoth of Joshua, is uncertain. It is usually supposed
to be the hilly country just under Carmel. If, how-
ever, the suggestion of Dillmann as to the original con-
struction of Josh.1711 be accepted (see ASHER. § 3 )
we must look in Issachar. May the Doc referred to be
1 On supposed wrestling in prayer (cp the Syriac text cited
by Kall ([SHOT& ioc.])5ee Gunkel, mi Zoc.
2 May it not be, however, that *hi??!, to which there is no
analogy in any Semitic language, is a corruption of hi?%,
inf. absol.? @n$nand ~- n* might then be variants of a misdaced
.(=1).
J Cp Bernstein, Sagen von Adraham, 38, Kuenen, Th.T
5 291, Kerher, He6. Eirmnanren, 59 68.
4 It is noteworthy that NaphtZli is, like LEvi, adjectival in
form. It never occurs, however, in the OT as an adjective or
with the article, or in t h e plural. BL however usually i n d
@ B A often have v~Q!3d[al~p--i.e., Napitalites (?)’(Ces.). The
text of Josephus gives vfgeahers (cp AW[P]LF, Gen. 35 23 [AE]) :
var. lect. -her, - A L ~ c-XArr,u.
, 2 Rernh. Luther thinks it was in some such way that the
5 The gentilic of h l 3 is h?, not bl?. Moreover, if
the word n ~ means
] ‘height,’ the final f is not radical.
3333
NAPHTALI
not that on the coast but some other-that which gave
its name to a well? (see, however, ENDOR l ) or to the
hot springs at e l - H a m m e h ? : HAMMATH [q.z’.. i.]
seems to have been called more fully Hammoth-dor
(Josh. 31 32). On the other hand there may have been
Naphoth in more districts than one, as there are more
than one Carmel. T h e country to the W. and PIT. of
the lake of Galilee might well be called hill country.
There is in fact a passage (Josh. 207) u-here the mountain
land of W. Palestine is expressly divided into three
sections: Mt. Judah in the S . , Mt. Ephraim in the
centre, and Mt. Naphtali in the N. (cp E PHRAIM , $$ 3 ) .
Mt. Naphtali well deserved the name.
Tradition assigned Naphtali stirring deeds in the early
times. In conjunction with Zebulun, Naphtali had
3. History. fought a great fight and come off victorious
(Judg. 4). Another story told of a great
struggle in which all the tribes settled round the plain
of Megiddo had taken part (Judg. 5). Trained to
daring in the exhilarating atmosphere of the open
heights, Naphtali joined Zebulun in reckless deeds of
valour (Judg. 5 18). Indeed Naphtali perhaps claimed
to have had the honour of providing the leader who led
to victory ( 4 6 ) . T o get beneath these legends, how-
ever, down to the rock of actual facts almost seems to
become more difficult the more the question is studied.
See J A B I NSISERA.
, M EROM , T ABOR, K EDESH . etc.
How Naphtali fared in the age when the Pharaohs
were founding their Asiatic ‘ empire ’ we can only guess
(col. 3546,nos. 16, 32. 34, 111). The Aniarna letters
may yield us in time a fuller knowledge of the course of
events about 1400 B. C. Letter 146 (rev. IZ), complain-
.
ing that ‘ all the cities of . . the king ’ ‘ in the land of
Kedesh on the Orontes (so now Wi. K A ZP), 199) ; but
Abimilki, governor of Tyre, complains of the relations of
Hazor or its king with the Habiri (15440-43). See also
J ANOAH , 2. Later came the conquests of .Sety in this
district, which led to its subjugation by Rameses 11.
At that time not Naphtali but Asher was the general
According to Steuernagel the Bilhah tribe
entered Palestine in the van of the Jacob or Joseph
tribe, after the Leah-Habiri had settled in Mt. Ephraini
and southwards. According to this theory the events
in the hill country of Galilee during the Amarna period
concerned people who could in no sense be called
Israelite : the Habiri there may have been Aramzean.
How far David really succeeded in welding the high-
lands N. of the great plain into his kingdom is not
clear. It is noticeable that there the prefectures in the
list in I K. 4 coincided with tribal divisions.2 How
rich a province Naphtali was considered appears in the
statement that its prefect was a son-in-law of Solomon
(AHIMAAZ,AHILUD,BASEMATH [but see SALMA]).
(C ABUL ) lay (G ALILEE , 2) Naphtali must in the early
monarchy have deeply felt the proximity of Phoenicia
(cp Wi. 129). When the crown passed to ISSA-
CHAR (I4), however, Bir’idri (B ENHADAD , I ) adopted
an aggressive policy ( I K.1520 : Dan, Ijon, Abel-beth-
maacah, all the land of Naphtali), which eventually
succeeded. Tibni, if Naphtalite3 (,EPHRAIM, 5, col.
1314, n. 3),may have been an earher representative of
the later pro-Aramaean party, opposed to Omri (see.
ever, K A Ti3),247). In any case. being contiguous with
Niph. Aramzean territory, Naphtali was already largely Aram-
aised when Assyria at last formally absorbed Damascus
(732). When precisely Naphtali’s turn came cannot be
made out from the mutilated inscriptions of Tiglath-
pileser 111. (Ann. 150, 209. 2 2 8 ; 3 R 10,n. 2.6-8,15-19).
1 This might even explain the intrusion of Endor which
critics have usually cut out as a + x s .
tribal unities came into being (%ATW211x [r91]).
3 Guthe ( G V f 138) suggests Ephrainiite or Manassite;
Winckler (KA TP),247, n. I), Of rkvara [EX-GANNIM].
3334
 NAPHTALI
PK. 15 29 (Ijon, Abel-kth-maacah, Janoah, Kadesh,
Hazor, Gilead [?I, Galilee [?I, all the land of Naphtali)
may refer to its definitive annexati0n.l Possibly the
mutilated slab 3 R 10, no. 2, once mentioned this : ‘ the
wide-reaching [Naphta]li2 in its whole extent I made over
to the territory of Assyria.’3 Josiah may have dreamed
of recovering it for a glorified ‘ Davidic’ kingdom
(JOSIAH); but that was reserved for more fortunate
hands (see M ACCABEES , 4, G ALILEE , § 3). Tobit is
said to have been of Naphthalite descent (see TOBIT).
In Dt. 3 4 2 , a (late?)‘ writer calls the whole country
N. of ‘ the land of Ephraim and Manasseh ’ ‘ all Naph-
4. Boundq, etc. tali.’ If Naphtali is really a geo-
graphical term the usage may perhaps
not be late. I n I K . 1 5 2 0 ‘ all the land of Naphtaii ’
(‘ Ben ’-hadad) seems to have practically the same
meaning; so in z K. 1529 (Tiglath-pileser III.), especi-
ally if JaNoAH is really Ysniih.
T h e description of the Naphtali territory in Josh.
1 9 3 3 3 is clearer than usual ; but unfortunately the places
named can seldom be identified.
T h e description may begin a t the NW. corner and cross to the
Jordan (see HET.F.PH, R E Z A A N A N NADAMI-NEKEP,
IM, JABNEEL,
I, L AKKUM ). T h e eastern border is supposed to be obvious :
the Jordan and its lakes. The southern border passes AZNOTH.
TABOR to H UKKOK . T h e SW. limit was Zehulun. The western
borde;(after Zebulun, of course) is Asher (on the text see J U D A H
AT JORDAN).
Naphtali was thus roughly the eastern portion of the
mountainous country reaching along the W.6 of the
lake of Galilee and the Jordan from the Issachar low-
lands indefinitely northwards into Aramaic or Phoenician
territory. See TAHTIM HODSHI. Naphtali is not said
to have marched with Dan, though it extended along
the Jordan valley. There can hardly have been a tribe
Dan of any consequence in the N. (it is ignored by P).
Nate the discrepancy as to the mother of Huram-abi.
I K. 7 14 makes her a Naphtalite (see D AN , 5 8, n. 3 ;
H IRAM , 2, n. I) like A HIRA (q.v.) of Nu. 115, ptc.
Divided into upper (northern) and lower (southern)
halves by the remarkable mountain wall that overhangs
the plain of er-R%meh,Naphtali contains some of the
finest country in Palestine. well watered, fertile, salubri-
ous, well peopled (see G ALILEE , § 4). The fruitfulness
of this land was proverbial : it supplies the matter for
the sayings about Naphtali in the ‘ Blessings’ of Jacob
and Moses-whatever be the true text.6 On the intimate
connection with the outer world secured for it by its
roads, see GASmith (HG 4258)and cp T RADE.
Of the nineteen ‘ fenced cities ’ promised in Josh. 1 9 3 8
~. Cities. the most liberal reckoning finds only sixteen.
Very roughly, the enumeration seems to
proceed northwards.
HAMMATH (prob. = Hammoth-dor [Josh. 21 321 = H A M n l o N
I Ch. 676 1611) and KEDESH have been identified with some
assurance in the S. and the N. HAZOR may be Tell Khureibah ;
and I RON Y&ninnear Hazor. For other less confident identi-
fications 5ee EDREI, E N- HAZOR, MIGDAL-EL. C HINNERETH is
a n interesting name applied also to a district of Naphtali.
ZIDIXMand Z ER (perhaps also H OREM ) are probably corrupt.
For the other townssee the special articles (R A KKOT H, ADAMAH,
RAMAH,BETH-ANATH, BETH-SHEMESH)..
1 A post.exilic writer has in5erted a n explanatory verse Is.
9 I [8 231 (cp Mt. 4 15) founded on this passage a s an introduction
t o the prophecy Is. 92-7 [I-61.
2 So first Hommel, GBA 685, n. I.
3 The preceding line, according to Rost’s collated text (Plate
.
XXV.), is : [nli-te (city) Ga-al-zra] . . [city] A-hi-il-ak-k[a] in
the territory ( S a puf) of Israel (Bittiurnnu).
4 See MANASSEH (0 2, n. 2).
5 Josephus however, says that it reached E. as far as
Damascus (ALt. v. 1 2 2 , R 86). Was he misled by 2 K. 15 q ?
6 In Gen.4921, Ball (SBOT,1 ? 1 7 2 d [18g5]) reads . b g j
~ D U 9 1 5 njnjn n n b pya, “ Naphtali is a spreading vine That
yieldeth beauteous fruit.” Cheyne (PSBA, June 1899,p. 242J)
reads n m y In* N i q m 5 m n j y h i [iso=nm=nimn belong-
ing to next line], Naphtali-luxurious is his possession ; H e
produces heaps of fruit.” T h e geographical appendix to the say.
ing in Dt. 33 23 is obscure. What is the ~ 1 of 1Naphtali?,(cp
~ a magical invocation. One is reminded of the Inca’s custom of
above, 0 I, end). Some think it means the Jordan depression.
Bertholet suggests that we should read p* 717, the way of the
sea’ (cp Is. 9 I [Sq]).
3335
NAPKIN
There was a famous sanctuary at Kedesh and, to
judge from the names, Beth-anath and Beth-shemesh
must have been sacred sites.
T h e Naphtali genealogy (Gen. 4 6 2 4 = N u . 2 6 4 8 J =
I Ch. 7 13) is very simple, containing only four names
6. Genealogies. J AHZEEL (in Ch. Jahziel), Guni, Jezer,
and Shillem.’ T h e names, except Guni
(see above, I ) do not recur in the OT. H. w. H.
NAPHTHA, the name given by the Greeks to a
highly inflammable oil ( c p Pliny, NN2 109). which cannot
have differed much from the modern article of commerce
(see E B g J 3.v.).
, I t is mentioned only in Apoc. Dan.
323 (6v. 46, va@Ba ; N D Syr. ~ ; R OSIN , AV).% With
it we may most probably identify the name N EPHTHAI
(RV ; ve@Bai [VI, ve@Bap[A], mi [Syr.] ; N EPHI , AV
with Vg.), which, according to 2 Macc. 136, was
conunonly given to the liquid which, legend states,
Nehemiah found in the pit where the sacred fire had
previously been concealed. Nehemiah himself, on the
other hand, is said to have called it Naphthar (AV
N EPHTHAR . ve@Bap [AV], nephthur, in0113 [Syr.]), a
name which admits of no satisfactory explanation. Ac-
cording to the writer (v.36) it means ‘cleansing’ (KaBa-
p ~ u p h )but
, ~ is more probably a corruption of the form
Nephthai (similarly Eusebius writes nabor-with an Y-
for Neb0 ; cp also Acre, from Accho?):
The legend above referred to(2 Macc. 1IS-36) narrates how the
godly priests before the captivity took of the sacred altar-fire and
concealed it,4 which is quite In accordance with the ancient
belief that the nation’s life and existence is coincident with the
preservation of the holy flame.5 After the return search was
made, and instead of the fire ‘thick water’ (ii8wp) rapj u. 21)
was found. At the offering u p of the first sacrifice the’liquid
was spread upon the wood and the ‘other things’ on the altar ;
prayer was made, and when the sun shone the liquid ignited
and the sacrifice was consumed.6 T h e consumption of the
offerings by fire was a sign that the sacrifice was acceptable, and
that the close relations between the Deity and his worshippers
which had been in abeyance during their captivity in a foreigi
land, were re-established. (Cp SACRIFICE.) I n accordance with
a custom which finds analogies elsewhere, the Persian king
wdered the place where this marvel had appeared to be enclosed
and made ‘hoIy’(;spis); cp Dict. Class. Ant., s.n. ‘Bidental.‘
NAPHTUHIM (Drn!?!), Gen. 1013 I Ch. 1 IIt.
In the original text (transformed by the redactor) thc name may
have been Tappubim; see MIZRAIM (co1.3164,n.1), NEUOii., $2.
NAPKIN ( c o y h ~ p l o ;~ Vg. sudurium) occurs in
Lk. 1920 Jn. 1144 2 0 7 Acts 1912 ( E V ‘handkerchief’ in
last passage). The Greek word is adopted from the
Latin (cp K ? ~ V U O S , p ~ p p p b v a ,etc.), and probably, at
first, had the same meaning with it, being derived from
rudo, to perspire, and thus corresponding to our word
(pocket) hundkerchit$
The Greek rhetorician Pollux (180 A.D.)remarks that UOVS~+LOV
had supplanted not only the ancient Greek word for handker-
:hief, qpcnipcov or +pinipptov, which he considers a n Egyptian
word, hut even the more recent term ra+18pdrrou (Onom. 7 16).
The Roman influence caused the introduction of this word even
among the Orientals ; the rabbins have ~ 1 1;1in ~Pesh. N ~ T ’ D
1 Is the Sa-ra-ma (WMM, As. u. Bnr. 220) of the expedition
>f Rameses 11. in his eighth year to be compared?
2 The name in olden times was taken to be of Persian origin,
:p OS 196, 93 ; 203 21.
3 Possibly based on a supposed connection with lDD, l ‘
!
?
,
although the representation of D by 0 is against this. See Lag.
Sa. Abh. 177,ZUMG 26, 212.
4 Cp the similar tradition of the hiding of tabernacle ark and
altar of incense in 2 Macc.24-8. and see Charles,’A&. ~. of
Baruch, 168.
5 On the sacredness of fire see Frazer Paus. 2 392 fi also
YBs(*J. The altar-fire was one of the five ihings which, adcord-
ng to the early Rabbins, were possessed by the first temple but
acking in the second. Another legend in the Eth. Book of Adam
-elates that Ezra on his return found the holy fire concealed
inderneath the temple; and a late tradition has identified thesite
If the discoveryof the ‘Naphthar’with Job’s Well (BirEyyzZb),
Nhich from the sixteenth century has been called by the Frank
3hristians ‘the Well of Nehemiah.’ See further FIRE in EBPJ.
6 In the sanctuaries of Hieroczsarea and H y p p a , according
:o Pausanias (v. 27 3). the sacred fires were kindled by the aid of
bcussinp the sun’s rays by means of concave pieces of polished
netal to obtain fire (Prescott, P e m , i., chap. 3 ; cp Plut. Numa,
:hap. 9, and Ew. Alferth. 38J).
3336
 NARCISSUS
answers to the Hebrew nnaBc)13, a veil (cp MANTLE), and in
Chaldee or H ~ ~ is
I used
D for a veil or any linen cloth
(Buxtorf, L e x . Chal. 1442).
It is indeed but natural to expect that a foreign word
introduced into any language should be applied by
those who borrow it in a looser sense than that which
it bore originally. Hence, although the Latin word
sudnrium is generally restricted to the forementioned
meaning, in Greek and Syriac it signified, chiefly,
napkin, wrapper, etc. These observations prepare us
for the different uses of the word in the NT.
( a ) In Lk. 1920 it means a wrapper, in which the
'wicked servant ' had laid up the pound entrusted to
him by his master. For references to the custom of
laying up money, etc., in uou&ipta, both in classical and
rabbinical writers, see Wetstein's N T , on Lk. 1920.
(6) In Jn. 11 44 it appears as a kerchief, or cloth attached
to the head of a corpse. It was perhaps brought round
the forehead and under the chin. In many Egyptian
mummies it does not cover the face. In ancient times
among the Greeks it did (Nicolaus, De GY~L-OY. Luck
ch. 3, § 6, 1697). Maimonides, in his comparatively
recent times, describes the whole face as being covered,
and gives a reason for the custom.
(c) In Jn. 207 it is said that the uou8dptou which had
been ' about the head ' of Jesus was found in the empty
grave, rolled up, as if deliberately, and laid apart from
the linen clothes (xwplr 2 v ~ e r u X ~ y p h oEIE
v Bra ~ 6 r o u ) .
( d ! In Acts 1911we read that uousdpta (handkerchiefs,
napkins. wrappers, shawls, etc.) were brought from the
body of Paul to the sick ; and the ' diseases departed
from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.'
Many illustrations of the widely prevalent belief in the
possibility of such magical transmission will be found
in Frazer, Golden Bough(").
NARCISSUS ( N A P K I C C O C ; as a Syr. name cp
Cureton's Anc. Syr. Documents, 110, 5 5 : and possibly
the Palm. name D'p73. VoguC. Syr. Centr. no. 75).
'Those of the household of Narcissus who are in the
L o r d ' are saluted in Rom. 1611. It is not said that
Narcissus himself was a Christian. If the greetings in
Rom. 16 were really intended for the Roman community
(see R OMANS ), it is not unnatural to think here of the
Narcissus who had been a favourite of the Emperor
Claudius and put to death in 54 A.D. (Sueton. CZuud.
28 ; Tac. Ann. 1257 131).
The name, however, is not uncommon; it was borne by a
favourite of Nero ( C a s Dio, 843), and appears frequently
among slaves and freedmen ; see Sanday and Headlam, Romans,
6. In the lists of the seventy disciples of the Lord by Pseudo-
%oratheus and Pseudo-Hippolytus, Narcissus figures as bishop
of Athens. The fragments of the Gnostic nepioaoc B~himou,
preserved in the Greek Menlpa, represent him as having been
50 consecrated by the apostle Philip (Lipsius, Apokz. A$.-
Gesch.337). In the l k p i o 8 o r n h ov x a l nadhou he is a
presbyter of Rome and entertainer d e r e of the apostle Peter.
n the Actus VerceZlenses he is the disciple of Paul. (Cp
Lipsius, op. cit. 2 175, etc.)
NARD (NAPAOC). Mk. 1 4 3 Jn. 123 RV, AV SPIKE-
NARD.
NASBAS ( NAcBAC[BA]),Tob. 11 18.f See AMAN,I.
NASI (NACEI [B]), I Esd.532 RV, AV Nasith
=Ezra 2 ..
5 4 . N EZIAH .
NASOR cup [AV]), I Macc. 1 1 6 7 AV, R V
HALOR( 4 . v . . I).
NATHAN ([b?, 50 ; ' He [YahwB] gives,' cp Ar.
w h b , etc., but cp N ETHANEEL , NETHANIAH ; NA~AN
[BKAR'TL] : A ~ A N[ K * , I Ch. 17x1. N A ~ A M[R* Ps.
5121). I. A contemporary of David and Solomon,
nearly always distinguished as ' the prophet' (cp z S.
121. @BAL, and see SBOT);cp P ROPHET , $5 4 , 6.
There is some reason to think that he was of Jerah-
rneelite origin (cp no. 4 below, see J ERAHMEEL , 5 3 ) ,
and the name has even been regarded as a modification
of the Jerahmeelite name Ethan (so Cheyne)-see
N ETHANIAH , P ROPHET , 5 6 and n. According to the
Chronicler (I Ch.2929 z Ch. 9.9) Nathan wrote a
3337
NATHANAEL
history of the times of David and Solomon ; hut it is in
connection with the latter king that he stands out most
clearly (see I K.1). Nathan %-as opposed to Joab and
Abiathar, who were favouring Adonijah's intrigue, and by
supporting Bathsheba's claims before David was ulti-
mately able, in conjunction with Zadok. to anoint her son
at Gihon. It is interesting to find a trace of Solomon's
practical gratitude in the fact that two of his prefects seem
to have been sons of Nathan (A ZARIAH (6), ZABUD).
The position Nathan occupied with David seems to
have been by no means unimportant. I n 2 S . 7 he is
represented in consultation with David about the building
of the temple, and in 2 S. 12 he visits the king to
reprove him for the sin with B ATHSHEBA [g.v.].
Chapter 7 is admittedly of later date (see S AMUEL
[BOOKS], 5 s), and the narrative in chap. 12 is not
beyond suspicion.' In fact, the occurrence of Nathan
as a profhef in David's history seems to rest on as
obscure a basis as does the occurrence of the only other
prophet with whom the king was intimately acquainted
-viz., G AD [ p . ~ . ] . On i q + i p;, see P ROPHET , 5 6.
2. b. DAVID [T.v. $ TI n.1 (2 S.5 14 I Ch.35 144, cp Lk.
3 31); he is perhaps to be identified with the one whose 'honse'
( i e . , family) is mentioned in Zech. 12 12.
3. Father of Igal (h*), z S. 2336, hut according to I Ch.
11 38 the brotker of Joel ( ( ~ y ) . Which of the two is correct, is
doubtful ; see J OEL [31.
4. b. Attai a Jerahmeelite I Ch. 236. His son was named
ZAmn, wbigh, on the view'that he is to he identified with
ZABUD[ g . ~ . ] , has led some to connect him with the prophet
( I above). cp J ERAHMEEL g 3.
5. Heah of family, temp: Ezra(see E ZRA i., 8 z, ii., 8 15 [ ~ l d ) ,
Ezra816(om. L)=I Esd.844.
6. One of the bn'e B ANI in list of those with foreign wives
(see E ZRA i., 5 5 end), Ezra 10 39 = I Esd. 9 34, PiATHANrAS
(uatlaviac [BAI). S. A. C .
NATHANAEL ( N A ~ A N A H ~[Ti. WH] ; cp
N ETHANEEL ), according to Jn. 145-51 212, one of the
first disciples of Jesus. I n Jn. 212 he is called
' Nathanael of Cana in Galilee.' T h e supposition,
however, that he was a Galilean is not favoured by the
question attributed to him in Jn. 1 ; a similar speech is
reputed to have been uttered at Jerusalem (Jn. 7 4 1 ) .
arid the evangelist evidently means that it was uttered
by Judaeans. Certainly, a Galilean Jew would have
remembered Is. 9 I [8 231, and have admitted that ' some
good thing ' might ' come out of Nazareth ' (or, perhaps,
rather that ' the Holy One of God ' might ' come out of
Galilee' ; cp Jn. 669 and see N AZARETH ). Jn. 21 is
admittedly an appendix to the Fourth Gospel, and the
description of Nathanael as 'of Cana in Galilee' may
be based on a conjectural inference from Jn. 22. All
that we are told in Jn. 145-51 is that Nathanael was ' an
Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.' Nathanael,
conscious of his own sincerity, asks how Jesus has
gained this knowledge of him. T h e answer of Jesus is,
'Before Philip saw thee, when thou wast under the
fig-tree, I saw thee.' The usual explanation of this
saying (see F I G - T R E E , J 5 ) is perhaps hardly adequate.
If it simply means, when thou hadst retired under the
6
shade of the fig-tree for meditation or prayer,' we ask
why the evangelist did not express the Master's meaning
more distinctly (contrast Jn. 4 18). for this Gospel, more
even than the others, is written with an eye to edification.
W e may venture therefore to conjecture that there is a
mistake in the Greek text. The Fourth Gospel is a
composite work, and the narrative in 143-51 may have
been partly based on a translation from the Hebrew in
which wc'atti mz'fh&znnFn ( p m n m~!), 'when thou wast
making supplication ' (expanded perhaps by the ac-
1 In chap. 12 m. 10.12 are a gloss resting upon 1620-22 (so
We., Kue., Bu.), and according to Budde ~71.7-9(' Thus saith
. . . in his eyes') are equally intrusive. But the latter passage
constitutes the point to the apologue and can hardly he severed
from it. The language of v. 7 (' I have anointed thee, etc.')
oints to I S. 16 13 (a late passage), and it is probable that
gchwally is right in rejecting m.1-15a as interpolated (see
SAMUEL [BOOKS], I 6). Verse 25, which is a doublet to v. 246,
will stand upon the same footing. See, further, AJSL 16156A
(19).
' 3338
 NATHANIAS
cidental repetition of nn) was mistaken for d'attri
fuhnlh hutF'2na (mmn:! ?!n ma). 'when thou wast
under the fig-tree.' N o critical scholar who has reflected
on the state of the text of the N T will any longer resist
the force of the argument for emendations as methodical
and circumspect, though not as numerous, as those
which have constantly to be made in the text of the OT.
On Nathanael's confession--'Thou art the Son of God, thou
art the kina of Israel' (which reminds us of Mt. 16 16, the con-
fession of Peter) see a paper by Rhees. J B L 17 (1898), 21-30,
with regard to which it may he remarked that to speculate,
however intelligently, on the ideas of the 'confession ' is hardly
safe, considering the unhistorical atmosphere which pervades
the narratives in connection with which the Nathanael episode
is introduced.
W e have now to notice attempts to identify Nathanael
with known historical persons. It is quite possible that
the evangelist imagined the typical character of a
guileless seeker after truth, who comes a t once to Jesus
to see whether he is really the Messiah. If so, we may
take the name Nathanael as an anticipative reference to
the success of his quest, and explain 'God has given
[the Messiah].' The traditional view that Nathanael is
the same as the apostle B ARTHOLOMEW (whose ordinary
name seems to be only a patronymic) is adopted by
Zahn (EinZ.1 2 3 ) , but chiefly rests on the consideration
that Nathanael is said (Jn. 1 4 5 ) to have been found by
Philip, next to whom, in the list of apostles, Bartholo-
mew is placed by the Synoptists. It is more probable,
however, that this otherwise unknown name of a disciple
is due to the narrator, who cares far more for ideas
than for literal facts. S o far we may agree with Spaeth
( Z W T , 1868, 168 8 ,309 8 ) but ; we cannot admit
that Nathanael is synonymous with Johanan, and that
the person intended is the apostle John. Certainly,
whoever wrote Jn. 21 z 7 20 did not hold this view, nor
could a son of Zebedee have asked the question in
Jn. 146. Yet Spaeth may be right in one-half of his
theory-viz., that Nathanael is that exquisite creation
of a devout imagination-' the disciple whom Jesus
loved' (Jn.1323 1926 202 21720). The difficulty in
admitting that John the son of Zebedee can have been
represented even imaginatively by the author of the
' spiritual Gospel ' as having been on the closest imagin-
able terms of intimacy with his Master (cp Jn. 1323 with
118, EI.S T ~ Y~ b h n o v TOO IIarpbs) is not appreciably
diminished by referring to the achievements of literary
idealisation elsewhere. That Jesus, however, should
have loved one who leaped at once to such a height of
insight as the imaginary Nathanael has a fair degree
of psychological verisimilitude. Why did not the evan-
gelist state this? Possibly some narrative relative to
Nathanael w a s omitted by the redactor (if we may
assume such a person) of our present Fourth Gospel,
the restoration of which would at once have made things
clear. Problems should always be stated, though they
cannot always be solved.
To follow Hilgenfeld (ZWT, 1873, pp. 96-102)and Hoitzmann
(in Schenkel's Bi6. L e x . 4 297) who identify Nathanael with
Paul, the 'apostle of visions' (cp Acts 26 16), who sought peace
in vain under the barren tigtree (Mt. 21 19), but found it by
personal contact with Christ, is much more difficult.
At a n earlier period Hilgenfeld (Lehrbeflfldes Euang. /oh.
271 j? ; Die Evangelfen, 242 8) identified Nathanael with
hlatthew, or (Nom Test. extra canonem, 4 I 93-106) with
Matthias. Strauss (Das L e b e n / e s a j : das deuische Volk(2),4 ~ 7 )
and Volkmar (Die E~mngelien,176) g o further, and identlfy
Nathanael, Matthew, and Zacchzus. Resch (Texte und Unters.
10 3 829.832) adopts Hilgenfeld's former view. Rovers (Th. T,
2 [1869], 653.661) is favourahle to Spaeth's hypothesis.
T.K. C.
2. I Esd. 19=2 Ch. 359, N ETHANEEL , 7.
3. I Esd.Q22=EzralOm. NETHAVEEL,8.
4. A name in the genealogy of Judith (Judith 8 I).
NATHANIAS (NaeaNiac [BA]), I Esd. 934=Ezra
1039. N ATHAN , 6.
NATHAN-MELECH ( -In?, as if ' t h e king has
given,' 41 ; but see below), a hlgh officer (see EUNUCH)
under Josiah, near whose ' chamber' were the horses
and chariots dedicated to the sun ( z K. 2311 : N a e a N
3339
NATIVITY
BaciAawc TOY E Y N O Y X O Y [BA], N. ~ Y N O Y X O YT O Y
B a c i A f ~ c[L, c p Pesh., reading q)Mg D'lD], N U B -
anmelech [Vg.]). On his functions see P ARVAR .
T h e name has been much discussed, but too much on the
assnEption that the Hebrew names have escaped being worn
down by use or transformed. Who is the ' k i n g ' intended? Is
it Yahwi: (cp Malchiah)? Or are the names Ehed-melech
and Nethan-melech (cp Nethan-iah) survivals from the time
when the Hebrews worshipped a god calied Melech distinct
from Yahwh? Gray ( H E " 148) supposes that Nethan-melech
was a foreigner who ' h;td been engaged in the estahlishment of
the foreign god Melech. But experience in studying the proper
names from a fresh point of view suggests that Malchiah,
Hammelech and Melech must he all popular corruptions of
Jerahmeel And hence indicate the increasing prominence of the
Jerahmeelh element in the later period of Jewish history.
Ehed-melech is probably miswritten for Arab-melech (.i>p->?K
--i.e. 'Arlb.jerahmeel (cp OBED-EDOMfor 'Arab-edom) ; and
Nethan-melech is a corruption of Ethan-melech-z.p., Ethnn-
jerahmeel. Ehed-melech is in fact called a Cushite-<.e.,
a N. Arabian-and we can well believe that his fellow-
chamberlain also was of N. Arabian origin. ' E t h a n ' seems
to have been a Jerahmeelite gentilic name; c p I K.43of:
[5 10f.1, where in a list of the legendary wise men of Kedem
(a corruption of Jerahmeel) and Miyim (in N. Arabia) we find
the name of Ethan. C p N ETHANEEL , N ETHANIAH .
T. K. C.
NATIONS. See G ENTILES, also G OIIM.
I
NATIVITY (-NARRATIVES)
T h e stories ($ 13). Baptism story ($ 14).
Their character (0 3 J ) . Development ($$ 15-17).
Attempts to harmonise ($8 5-7). Incidents (8 185).
Implications of gospels (8% 8-11). The result (0 20).
The narratives later (%..A). Bibliography ($ 21).
The teaching and passion of Jesus had long been
subjects of written tradition before any attempt was
made to round off the picture of his life by describing
its beginnings. Not only in Mk. but even in Jn.. the
latest of the gospels, the narrative begins with the public
appearance of the Baptist. Only Mt. and Lk. deal with
the birth and childhood of Jesus, and the two accounts
are irreconcilably a t variance.
Mt. describes (118-25) in a summary way how Mary,
espoused (pvvaTEu8daqs) to Joseph, was (before they
came together) found to be with child of the
'.
In IYIt' Holy Ghost ; her husband, being a follower
of the law (8ircaros dv)and still unwilling to see her sub-
jected to the law's penalty, resolved to put her away
secretly. At this juncture a n angel of the Lord appeared
to him with these words : 'Joseph, thou son of David.
fear not to take unto thee (napahapeiv) Mary thy wife,
for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their
sins.' In all this the evangelist finds the fulfilment of
the prophecy contained in Is. 7 1 4 , which could be
adduced in this connection only in the interpretation of
the LXX ( ' virgin for ' young woman '). H e then pro-
ceeds to tell how Joseph, awaking from sleep, did as
the angel had commanded, and took his wife to himself,
but did not enter into marital relations till she had
brought forth a son ( D L : ' her firstborn son ' according
to Lk. ), wrhom he called Jesus. At this stage we become
informed of the time and place of these events ; it was
a t Bethlehem of J u d z a that Jesus was born and in
the days of Herod the king (21). T h e divinity of the
child is forthwith confirmed by a sign. Magi came
from the East to Jerusalem- their number is not
stated-and asked : 'Where is he that is [even now]
born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the
east and are come to worship him.' Troubled a t the
tidings, Herod calls together all the chief priests and
scribes, who, appealing to Mic. 5 I [z], declare Bethlehem
of Judaea to be the place where the Messiah promised
to the Jews should appear. After learning carefully
from the magi the time of the star's appearing, Herod
sends them away with the injunction to make diligent
search concerning the child. and to bring him word
again. Following the leading of the star till it stood still,
the magi come to Joseph's house (211,eis TT)Y OiKlav).
3340
 NATIVITY NATIVITY
find the child and Mary its mother, fall down and duces the psalm simply by the words rai dns, ‘and said’-the
subject being given as Elizabeth by the context itself (S5.4 W,
worship him, and, opening their treasures, present him 1900,27 5388:).
gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Warned by
After three months Mary returns to her home, and
a dream not to return to Herod, they depart into their the narrative goes on to relate the incidents of the circum-
country another way. cision and naming of John, the unlooked-for restoration
TO Joseph also (again) a n angel appears in a dream of speech to Zacharias and his hymn of praise (167-79).
bidding him take the child and its mother and flee into which speaks a t once of the coming Messiah and of his
Egypt to escape the wicked devices of Herod. This
own son who is to prepare the way for him. The narra-
Joseph did, remaining in Egypt till the death of Herod ;
tive closes, so far as John is concerned, with a single
and thus was fulfilled the word of prophecy (Hos. 11I ),
sentence about his childhood and youth and his life in
‘ Out of Egypt did I call my son.’ Then Herod, in his the wilderness.
impotent wrath, gave orders to slay all the male children
The place of Bethlehem in the narrative is accounted
in Bethlehem and its borders, from two years old and
for by the census ordered by Augustus for the whole
under, in accordance with the date which he had learned
empire, and carried out in Palestine by Quirinius, the
from the magi. The sign for return from Egypt was
governor of Syria ; this census rendered it necessary for
again received by Joseph through an angel in a dream.
Joseph to g o up along with his wife to Bethlehem the
Hearing, however, that Archelaus the son of Herod was
city of David, because he himself w3s a member of the
now reigning over Judzea, Joseph is afraid to return thither
house of David. There his wife is delivered of her first-
(that is, to Bethlehem), and in accordance with a fresh
born son, whom she lays in the manger. The shepherds
admonition received in a dream withdraws to the land
in the field, hearing the angel‘s message and the song
of Galilee. where he settles a t Nazareth.
of the niultitudes of the heavenly host, come and worship
If we leave out of account the elements in the preced-
the child in the manger, and Mary stores up these words
ing narrative that have been derived by research from
and ponders them in her heart. As prescribed by the
the OT, there is nothing left which could not have been
law, the child is circnmcised on the eighth day, and a t
drawn from living tradition, or, in other words, from
the same time receives the name of Jesus which had
popular story. In fact, its vague and unclear statements
been given to him by the angel a t the annunciation.
which perplex the interpreter and have been brought
After the forty days of purification-‘their ’ ( u h h ) , not
into prominence by Courady (see below, $5 6, 21)
seem even to preclude the possibility of any written
‘ her ’ (atJr+js); for the husband also is defiled by con-
tact with the woman in childbed-the child is presented
source having lain before the author, and are most
and the appointed offering made in the temple a t Jeru-
naturally explained as arising from careless repetition
salem, on which occasion the aged Symeon, to whom it
of oral tradition.
had been promised that he should not see death before
The impression produced by the narrative of Lk.15-
he had seen the Messiah, and Anna the prophetess, bear
250 is quite different. It is a product of literary art, an witness to the fulfilment of their hopes. Kow a t last,
a, In Lk. art which shows itself in the whole structure all the precepts of the law having been satisfied, the
of the story, not merely in the reproduction
parents are free to set out with the child on their return
of the forms of a Hebrew psalm. The author con-
journey to Nazareth. There by the grace of God the
structs his history upon the basis of the presuppositions
youth of the coming saviour is passed in uninterrupted
supplied in the gospel-that the activity of John the
growth. Only one occurrence of this period has the
Baptist prefigured. as it preceded, that of Jesus, and
evangelist thought fit to record-the scene in which the
that the Messiah expected by the Jews had appeared in
boy, now twelve years of age, was found by his parents
the person of Jesus ; he accordingly seeks to show the
among the doctors of the law in the temple at Jerusalem.
fortunes of the two personalities. the Saviour and his
In the whole tone and character of the narrative-its
forerunner, a s intimately interwoven with each other,
leading conceptions, its repeated employment of the
not only from birth but even from the womb.
Hebrew psalm-form, its familiarity with
Lk. describes with much detail how the angel Gabriel
3’Character Jewish and its defective acquaintance with
appeared to the aged priest Z A C H A R I A S (q.v., I O ) as he Of Lk”s
Roman conditions-the hand of a Jewish
was ministering in the temple and announced to him
that his long-barren wife Elizabeth, now far advanced
narrative’ Christian is, as is now generally recog-
nised, unmistakable. The matter of it also clearly
in years, was to bear him a son who should go before
divides itself into two distinct sections : that relating to
the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah and prepare
the early history of John (ch. l), and that relating to
his people for his coming. Zacharias’ unbelief is punished
the birth and childhood of Jesus (ch. 2). Whilst in
with dumbness; but his wife becomes pregnant and
the first the foreground is occupied by Zacharias and
hides herself for five mouths. Next, while Elizabeth is
Elizabeth, and Mary’s conception is brought in only as
in her sixth month, the same angel, Gabriel, appears to
an episode, the second makes no mention a t all either
Mary, the betrothed but as yet unmarried spouse of
of John or of his parents. T o separate the two sections
Joseph, with the annunciation that she is to conceive
from each other, however, as has been proposed, is not
and bear a sou destined to sit upon the throne of his
possible. They are firmly united ; Zacharias’ song of
father David, of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
praise p i n t s to the Redeemer, and in the prophetic
Perplexed, because conscious of her virginity, she hears
words of the aged Symeon is repeated the same Hebrew
from the angel that that which is to be born of her will
psalm-form as is seen in the hymns of Elizabeth and
be by the Holy Ghost, and she is pointed to the coming
her husband (see H YMNS ). T h e space assigned to the
maternity of her kinswoman Elizabeth. To her Mary
story of John is. it is true, larger in proportion to the
in her gladness betakes herself in the hill-country of
main subject-that of the annunciation to Mary-than
Judzea, and there is prophetically greeted by her kins-
we might have expected in a writer who had addressed
woman as the blessed of the L o r d ; and even the
himself independently to the task of describing the in-
unborn John leaps in his mother’s womb for joy.
carnation of the Saviour.
Then follows the Mgn&zt (1 46-55), a song of praise
in the genuine Hebrew manner, modelled upon that of It is very possible that the miraculous narrative of the promise
and fulfilment of the birth of John (Lk. 15-25 46-55 57-80)may
Hannah in I S . 2 18 have already sprung up and gained currency within the circle of
Following up the observations of Hillmann (ZPT17 197&?), John’s disciples before it was brought into connection with the
D. Viilter (ThT50 254.256) argued with much cogency that this story of t h e conception and nativity of Jesus. Had the com-
song belongs, not as t h e tradition of the MSS and of the church position which was intended to correlate the beginnings of the
would have it. to Maw. but to Elizabeth. a n d Harnark has two lives been a unity from the first, it would certainly have
recE<ly &ought the q&stion ti a concluL;on h~&&&g that given larger space and greater prominence to the parents of the
the ‘Mary’ of the MSS and the ‘Elizabeth’ vouched for in its Saviour, and would not have allowed the principal to be over-
place by ancient authorities are both alike interpolations of the shadowed by the subordinate figures. The revelation to
nature of glosses, and proving that the genuine tradition intro- Zacharias (114-17)proclaims in the returning Elijah the fore.
334’: 3342
 NATIVITY
runner not so much of the saviour as of God himself (Mal. 4 4 [si)
and Elizaheth's song of praise has no recognisable reference to
Jesus. The whole character of chap. 1 is best explained on the
supposition that the narrative of the birth of John first appeared
among the disciples of John ' the ewish Christian author of the
whole will then have taken dver tf!e pbem by a disciple of John
along with a revised version of the psalm attributed to Zacharias
expanded it by addition of the Annunciation and Visitation, and
in a certain measure imitated it in the short hymn of Symeon
(2 q-p).So much may we safely concede to Volter (Tk.T 30
[189$] 244J) though not necessarily adopting all his critical con-
clusions i n detail.
Every unprejudiced eye will perceive that the nativity-
narratives of Mt. and Lk. are mutually exclusive and
4. Mt. and Lk. irreconcilable. What they have in
contrasted. common-the figures of Joseph, Mary,
and Tesus. the desienation of Tesus as
Messiah, the date in- Herod's reign and the birth in
Bethlehem-were given data. Upon the common
foundation the two evangelists rear quite different
structures.
J p q h ' s home in Mt. is Bethlehem, in Lk. Nazareth: the
divinity of Christ is attested in Lk. by the angel's words to the
shepherds and the song of the heavenly host, in Mt. by the
appearance of the star in the East; the new-horn Messiah receives
his first adoration in Lk. from the shepherds in Mt. from the
magi. In Mt. the family of the saviour fleesirom the wrath of
Heiod to Egypt and afterwards avoids Archelaus by settling in
Nazareth ; in Lk., after fulfilment of all the ceremonial duties
arising out of the birth, the return is made to Nazareth direct.
There, according to Lk., the youth of the saviour is spent quietly
and uninterruptedly, whilst in M t. his earliest years are disturbed
by perils and changes of abode. A still deeper contrast emerses
as soon as Lk.'s narrative has been freed from a later accretion
(see below, g r6).
From the nature of the case both canonical narratives
were accepted .~ by faith and incorporated with each other.
6. Attempts We see the process beginning in a
to harmonise. writer so early a s Justin Martyr. T h e
contradiction between the doctrine of
the divine origin of Jesus and the fact that in the gospels
not Mary but Joseph is spoken of as of the house of
David, he removes by representing that it was Mary
who belonged to the house of David (Dial. 43, 45. IOO),
while veiling Josephs Davidic origin by saying that he
belonged to the tribe of Judah (Dial. 78). Justin also
represents (i6id.) Joseph as having 'journeyed from
Nazareth where he lived to Bethlehem to which h e
belonged,' thus seeking t o remove the contradiction
between the statements regarding his home. It is
interesting to observe how the same writer carries on
the legend a t the same time that he makes these first
attempts a t reconciliation of contradictions. The birth
is in a cave (cp BETHLEHEM, 5 4) not in the stable
( D i d . 78),and the magi are already represented as
coming from Arabia (so often, later). The question
arises, whether the divergences in Justin's account of the
nativity are sufficient to warrant the inference drawn by
Credner (Beitr. z. Einl. i. d. Bi6l Sdw.l z r z f . ) and
others after him that h e made use of a n extra-canonical
source.
Before the end of the second century there had been
composed, with the view of removing the glaring con-
~ n--r tradictions between Mt. and Lk., the
0. C L U I r
evangelium so-called ProteuangeZium lacobi, a n
apocryphal work by a fanciful fabulist,
Jacobi. unhampered by knowledge of Tewish
affairs. It obtained- great currency and- in particular
furnished subjects for former Christian art (cp JOSEPH
[in NT], 7). Origen certainly was acquainted with
it, and so also possibly was even Clement of Alexandria
Although the author goes much farther back in his
narrative than our gospels and seeks to surround the
early history with miraculous elements, in other respects
h e betrays no other intention than that of unifying and
rounding out the two canonical accounts, following
them so far as possible word for word. The writer's
dependence on them becomes most conspicuous precisely
in those places where he seems to depart farthest from
them. Interested exclusively in the story of Mary, he
has attempted to obliterate that of John so intimately
bound u p with it in Lk. ; but he did not wish to pass
3343
NATIVITY
over the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth (chap. 12)
and he refers to Zacharias' dumbness as something
well-known, though h e does not say what had been its
cause or how it came t o be removed. His unskilful
introduction of the episode of the Magi also tells a tale.
His few divergences from the canonical accounts, on the
other hand, do not count for much.
The cave as the scene of the nativity comes, as in Justin
from popular tradition ; the suppresion of the flight into Egyp;
-which occurs by interpolation (22 z), only in a few MSS-may
arise from deference to the third canonical gospel, which the
author seems to have preferred. Harnack (Gesrk. d. altrhr.
Lift. 119, 2598) has done substantial justice to this apocryphal
work.
Other apocryphal sources of stories of the nativity and child-
hood of Jesus will he found in Tischendorf's Euang. A$orr.P),
1376 : for their contents R. Hofmann, Das L e h n 3 e s x nach
den Apokryphen, 1851, may be consulted. All further treatments
of the story of the nativity rest entirely on the three sources we
have named-the two canonical Gospelsand the Protmungelilrm
Jar&- as Conrady has shown (Qaelle der Kindkeitsgesck.
1 7 2 8 ) . Later additions, such as that of the ox and the ass to
the manger, are due to popular imagination, partly influenced
by the liturgy.
For Christian orthodoxy, the reconcilability of the
two canonical accounts was always a necessary dogma.
It explains the -divergence of the-two
"* lYIore recent by saying that each of the two evange-
lists selected for narration different
sections of the same story. I n the age of criticism
of sources, this view perforce, in spite of Schleier-
macher's warning (Leben /em, i. 6, 50 J ? ) , had t o give
way to the hypothesis that behind Mt. and Lk. there
lay a single written source, a ' gospel of the birth and
childhood of Jesus.' To A. Resch belongs the doubt-
ful merit of having ' discovered ' this * Gospel of Cbild-
hood,' as also of having restored it both in Greek and
in Hebrew. Conrady, advancing a step farther on the
same path, bas sought to show that the Pyotevavgelium
Jaco6i is the single source required by the facts.
The gospels themselves supply ample justification of
a criticism of the eosDel narratives. I n suite of all the
8. Implications revisions which the gospels received
of the gospels. before they became canonically fired,
thev sti!l not unfreauentlv Dreserve
, &
references t o conditions which are irreconcilable with
the later additions and owe their preservation, as a rule,
to their being inseparably bound u p with weighty
utterances of Jesus which the church could not willingly
let die. The remark has long ago and often been made
that, like Paul, even the Gospels themselves know
'nothing of the miraculous birth of the Saviour. O n
the contrary, their knowledge of his natural filial
relationship to Joseph the carpenter, and to Mary his
wife, is still explicit (see JOSEPH [in NT], $5 7-9).
Even the episode of the finding in the temple (Lk.
24'-50) recognises this relationship alone.
Cp u. 43, 'and his parents knew not of it'(RV-which in time
became changed into 'Joseph and his mother' [so AV]), and
Mary says (71. 48) 'thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
The episode is introduced, it is true, for the purpose of allowing
the consciousness of divine sonship to receive its first manifesta-
tion (v. 49) ; hut precisely the fact that his parents do not under-
stand the expression of it (v. 49 & mis TOG lrarpdr pov, lit. 'in
the things of my father') convincingly proves that in the
mind of the narrator Joseph and Mary were and knew them-
selves to be, in the natural sense of the words, the parents of
Jesus.
Still clearer to the same effect is another passage.
When Jesus after the first acts of his public ministry by
the sea of Galilee came on one occasion to his native
town of Nazareth and appeared in the synagogue, the
people, marvelling, asked ' Is not this the carpenter's
son? Is not his mother called Mary? (Mk. h a s : ' I s
not this the carpenter, the son of Mary') and his brethren
James and Joses and Simon and Judas? and his sisters,
are they not all with u s ? ' (Mt. 1 3 5 5 8,c p ,Mk. 6 3 ) .
See JOSEPH [in NT], § 9. In the correspondmg place
in Lk. ( 4 2 2 3 ) Jesus himself answers the question of
the Nazarenes, 'Is not this Josephs son?' in the
affirmative by his silence, merely declining to work
miracles with the remark that no prophet is acceptable
3344
 NATIVITY
( 8 ~ ~ ~in6 his
s ) own conntry ; the passage which he reads
from the Hook of Isaiah (61 I ) speaks of the anointing
with the Holy Ghost but says nothing of divine sonship.
In the Fourth Gospel, Nathanael of Bethsaida is
represented as doubting the Messiahship of Jesus ;
Philip had told him that the Messiah of whom Moses
and the prophets had written had been found-
‘ Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph’ ( 1 4 5 ) and
Nathanael’s answer is ‘ Can any good thing come out
of Nazareth ?’ (see N ATHANAEL).
Most eloquent in the same sense is the synoptic
account of the repudiation of his kindred by Jesus
(Mt. 1246-50, Mk. 331-35, Lk. 819-z1), which Mk. alone
has preserved in its original connection.
The miracles wrought by Jesus had led the scribes to maintain
that Jesus had entered into a conrpact with the prince of the
devils (hlk. 3 2 2 . cp Mt. 12 24 Lk. 11 1 5 Jn. 10 2 0 ) ; see BEEL-
ZERUL. l h e report of this accusation had reached his home, and
his distressed mother and brothers set out to lay hold of him
and to bring him hack, in the belief that he was beside himself
(Mk.321). They find him in a house surrounded by a
multitude of listeners and are unable t o get near him. On their
sendin- in a message desiring to speak with him, he makes
answe; stretching forth his hand towards his hearers, ‘Behold
my moiher and my brethren : for whosoever shall d o the will of
my Father the same is my brother and sister and mother’-a
saying the’hluntnesn of whlch is accounted for by the conviction
that he found himself and his work misunderstood by his own
immediate kindred ; in Jn. 7 5 this is expressly said of his
brothers. I n Acts also (1 14) mention is made of the brothers as
well as of the mother of Jesus.
The conclusions suggested by these observations agree
excellentlv with the eenealoaies ureserved to us in Mt.
1I - l . a n d Li. 3 2 y 3 8 (see GENEALOGIES
9. Genealogies. OF TEsus,. Thev are comuletelv in-
. I , . I
dependent attempts; but both are based on the pre-
supposition that Jesus was the true son of Joseph ; and
it is in this sense alone that they can be held to have
any purpose or meaning.
Whilst Mt. carries the list down from Abraham toJoseph and
Jesus in three periods of fourteen generations each, Lk. traces
it upwards from Jesus ‘being, as was supposed, the son of
Joseph ’ to Adam himself ‘ which was the son of God’ ; only the
first fourteen ancestors in Mt., and two a t the beginning of his
third period (Salathiel and Zorohabel) are met with also in Lk.
The addition in Lk. of the words ‘as was suppo5ed,’and the
closing words in Mt.’s li-t ‘joseph the husband ,of Mary of
whom (94 s ) was born Jesus, who is called Christ hetray the
hand of the harmonising redactor ; hut such faltering touches
have not sufficed to remove the absolute incompatibility between
the narratives of the nativity and these genealogies, of which
Joseph, not Mary, is the subject.
If we adopt Lk.’s statement (136) as historical, Mary
had no connection with the huuse of David : she was a
kinswoman ( a u y y w i s ) of Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was
‘ of the daughters of Aaron ‘ (15). The present writer.
however, is unable to follow Hilgenfeld and Hillmann
( Z P T 17, 2 5 0 J ) in thinking that Clemens Romanus
( I Cor. 321) regarded Jesus as by birth a Levite
through Mary, o f course). It was not until the belief
in the virgin-birth of Christ had attained currency that
any necessity could be felt for making Mary a member
of the family of David. This was done as early as in
Justin Martyr’s time (see above, § 5). and next in the
ProtevangeNurn Jucodi (chap. 10) ; and the Syrian
Palimpsest of Sinai even contains the interpolation
‘because they were both of the house of David’ (Lk.
25 [4]). All this is intelligible easily enough, just as it
is easy t o understand why Reschs theological interpreta-
tion discovers the Davidic descent of Mary in the Gospels
themselves (Kindheitsen. 191).
The chronological difficulties with which learned
subtlety has struggled in vain for centuries, can
Dates. only be indicated here (cp CHRONOLOGY,
§ 57 f., QUIRINIUS). When Mt. places
the nativity within the reign of Herod and the return
from Egypt in that of Archelaus his successor, the
birth of Christ is thereby determined to have been
some years earlier than 4 B.c., Herods death-year.
Lk. on the other hand connects the nativity with the
census carried out in Palestine by order of Augustus
1 On this clause see MARY, 5 14.
3345
NATIVITY
under P. Sulpicius Quirinius the Governor of Syria.
This cannot be conceived as having been carried out
before the deposition of Archelaus in 6 A . D . , and iu
point of fact it is attested for this date by Josephus
(Ant. xvii. 1 3 5, § 355 ; xviii.).
Even if it is made out with a high degree of probability that
Quirinius had already for a previous term (about 3-2 a.c.) been
governor of Syria (Mommsen, Mon. Ancyr.W, 1 6 1 8 ; Schiirer,
G/V 112) ZMJ?, ET i. 1 3 5 r S ), the essential fact for the narra-
tive of Lk.-the census by Quirinius in Palestine-cannot be
assigned to a date earlier than 6 A.D. Lk., however, is in con-
tradiction not only with Mt. hut also with himself; for a t the
outset of his narrative (1 5),he places the event ‘in the days of
Herod the king of the Jews. The two data are separated by a n
interval of more than ten years. No trustworthy date a t all can
be obtained from the accounts of the nativity that have reached
us. The year can he approximately determined only by the ele-
ments supplied in Lk. 3 I 23-that John began his public ministry
in the fifteenth year of Tiberius (28-29 A.u.) and that Jesus when
he began his (29 A . D .) was about thirty years of age (see further
Clinton, Pnsfi Helienici, 3260 8 ;A. W. Zumpt, Dus
Geburfsjnhr Chrisfi,I 869).
T h e gospels say nothing as to the day of the nativity.
The church fixed it by mythological analogy. Whilst
the ancient church (as also the Armenian church still
does) commemorated the nativity at the feast of
Epiphany (6th January), which derives from the
Alexandrian feast of the appearing of Dionysos, the
Roman Church from the middle of the fourth century
onwards set apart the nata& soZis invicti-i.e., 25th
Dec.-as the anniversary of the Saviour’s birth (cp
Usener, Re.?.-gesch. Unt., 1889).
Before this however the most diverse attempts were made to
fix adate. A learned jesuit, Antonmaria Lupi, in the eighteenth
century took the trouble to show (Disserfazioni,lefferzed aZftre
operefte, Faenza 1785 1219 8 )that there is no month of the
year to which th; n a t k t y has not been assigned a t one time or
another.
Another contradiction which must not be over-
looked relates to the place of the nativity. The
ll. Place of traditions that Jesus was born at Beth-
nativity. lehem and that he belonged to Nazareth
had become equally firmly established
when the Evangelists came to deal with them. Mt.
took Bethlehem simply as the native place of Joseph,
whom he then represented as fixing his abode at
Nazareth in Galilee from fear of Archelaus after the
return from Egypt ; he had no right (1354) to call
Nazareth the native place ( H U T ~ ~ ~ofU Christ
) as his
predecessor (Mk. 61) was able to do. Lk. takes
Nazareth as the home of Joseph, and to explain the
occurrence of the birth at Bethlehem avails himself of the
census of Quirinius.
Just as the teaching activity of Jesus down to the
period of his last journey to Jerusalem was certainly for
the most part confined to the districts immediately
surrounding the lake of Galilee, so also his origin in
Nazareth of Galilee was a n accepted fact (Mk. 61-4
Mt. 1 3 5 4 Ji Lk. 4r6 fi Mt. 2111 266971 Jn. 146
741) ; indeed Mt. 223 is able to quote in support of it a
(no doubt very apocryphal) prophetical utterance :
‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophets : he shall be called a Nazarene ’ (Nu{wpaios).
How was it possible for Bethlehem to set up competing
claims ?
I n this connection i t has been noticed that there was also a
Bethlehem in Galilee, not far from Nazareth, which is mentioned
once in the Talmud as Bethlehem Noseriyyah. Our present
problem, however, cannot he solved, hut rather only further
complicated, by this reference.’ For it is just as certain that
the Bethlehem spoken of in the Gospels as the birthplace of
Jesus is the Bethlehem in Judrea, south of Jerusalem, as it is
that Nazareth was universally accepted as his home.
I t is important, however, that, of all the gospel
narratives, it is only those of the nativity that refer to
the Bethlehem in question. The key is to be sought
here.
After the discourse on the living water, as we read in
1 [On the complication thus introduced cp N AZARETH , 0 4,
where the bearing of the evidence is considered, and a n attempt
made to go behind the existing evangelical traditions.]
3345
 NATIVITY
Jn. 740 f.,the audience expressed themselves variously
as follows : ‘some said : of a truth this
12. m y is the prophet. Others said : this is the
Christ. But some said : Shall Christ
come out of Galilee? has not the scripture said, that
Christ comes of the seed of David, and out of the town
of Bethlehem, where David was?’ Even as early
as the triumphal entry into Jerusalem we find the
populace shouting their Hosannas to Jesus as the ‘ son
of David‘ (Mt. 219, cp 2115, Mk. 1110, but cp
H OSANNA ) ; and the Pharisees know that the anointed
of the Lord can only be a son of David (Mt. 2242, Mk.
1235, Lk. 2041). From the prophecy in Mic. 51 [ z ]
was drawn the further inference that the Messiah must
come from the city of David, Bethlehem. The scribes
whom Herod, according to Mt., calls to his aid, cannot
in view of this prophecy (Mt. 2 6 ) for a moment be in
any doubt as to the place where the newborn King of
the Jews is to be sought. The narrative of Jn., where
the supernatural birth is still unknown, sets the actual
home of Jesus, Galilee, over against the theoretical
birthplace demanded by Jewish belief, and reveals the
hidden path by which Bethlehem had found its way
into the gospel tradition. Even while he was yet
alive, Jesus was regarded as the ‘anointed of God’ ;
Peter himself had accorded the title (Lk. 920, cp Mk.
829 ; in Mt. 16 16 ‘ the Christ, the son of the living
God ’). The whole series of attributes which associated
itself with the idea of the Messiah in the Jewish mind
had necessarily to be transferred to Jesus as soon as
the conception that he was the Christ’ had come
effectively into being ; it is a particular case of a general
law observable in the growth of legend. Above all
it was necessary that Jesus should be a descendant of
David, and thus of kingly origin. The genealogical
lists which brought Joseph the father of Jesus into
connection with David were the first literary consequence.
However unobtrusive the prose in which they speak,
they are nevertheless the earliest attempts at poetical
invention regarding the birth of Christ. The next in-
evitable step was to transfer his cradle to Bethlehem.
When the accounts of Mt. and Lk. were written this
had already become a fixed article of faith, which, well
or ill, had somehow or other to be fitted in and
reconciled with the historical fact as to his actual home.
The contradictions (of the facts as made known to us
by the gospel itself) prove that at the time when the
13. The narra- narratives of the nativity and childhood
were given their present place the
tives an kernel of the gospels of Mt. and Lk.
addition. was already fixed. These additions
must come from quite other hands-the substance of
them that is to say, not necessarily the form. For
there remains the possibility -untouched by our
criticism--that the present form is due to a reviser
before whom the various elements already lay.
This possibility does not seem to have been present to the
mind of Harnack when recently (SBA W 2 7 [ ~ g m5l 4 7 3 3 , pro-
ceeding upon the similarity of phraseology and vocabulary, he
thought it possible to prove that the first two chapters of Lk.
are due to the same hand as that which wrote the whole of the
rest of that gospel and Acts as well. It is utterly impossible to
think even of those chapters as indubitably coming from one
and the same hand. The ultimate decision of the question must
be left to criticism of the facts and analysis of the composition.
Whilst in Mt. the story of the childhood allows itself
to be recognised as an interpolation by the fact of its
being in contradiction with the rest of the gospel, in
the case of Lk. we are able to confirm the results
reached by criticism by referring to the testimony of
the author himself. His appeal to those who ‘from
the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the
word ’ (12 ; cp 1 3 , dvwOev)-even apart from the ex-
press interpretation of what he means by the expressions
‘ from the beginning ’ (&a’dpx+js) and ‘ from the first ’
(&vwOev)which he gives in Acts 122 (dp&&vos dsb TOO
~ ~ T T ~ U ~ Z aTbeginning
O S , from the baptism’; also 1037.
a beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John
3347
NATIVITY
preached ’)-would leave no room for doubt that Lk.
began his gospel with the baptism and preaching of
John. This has in substance been correctly and con-
clusively shown by P. Corssen ( G G A , 1899,pp. 315-
327).
The oldest written forms of the gospel knew, and
knew onlv.,. that Tesus was born at Nazareth as the son
14. Earlier of Joseph and Mary; but they also
taught that he was the Messiah foretold
n;trrcttivee. by the prophets and expected by the
Jews, and they also were able to tell how
it was that Jesus himself came to be possessed with the
consciousness that he was the Son of God. In these
representations were contained the germs which found
a fruitful soil in the receptive minds of the ancient
Christian churches and were destined to develop com-
paratively soon into the dogma of the divinity of Christ
and even into that of the pre-existence of the Son of
God.
As regards the Messiah, Jewish faith did not look
for any supernatural birth ; he had only to be a de-
scendant of David and the chosen one of God (cp
Hillmann, IPT 17 [1891]233 8 ) . From this, by and
by, followed, as a first and unquestioned consequence,
that the father of Jesus had to be a descendant of
David, and that Jesus must have been born in Beth-
lehem. It became further necessary, in the second
place, that the chosen one of God should be brought
into closer relation with God. H e who had been born
and brought up as man required a divine consecration
to his office. Hence the baptism in Jordan.
T h e appearance of John the Baptist, his preaching
and baptism, occupied the first place in the oldest
written gospels (see J OHN T H E BAPTIST). T h e ex-
ample of the Baptist was the means of awakening Jesus
to a perception of his own great task; the depth of
the impression made upon him by John is shown by
the elevation of the witness which he bears to him (Mt.
1 1 7 fl Lk. 724-35, cp Mt. 2132). I t was not till the
coming of the tidings that the activity of John had been
brought to an untimely end by his imprisonment at
Herods command that Jesus emerged from the obscurity
in which he had hitherto lived (Mt. 4 12 Mk. 114). Thus
there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that
Jesus also was among the multitude of those who
thronged to the preaching of John to be baptised, and
this fact was stated from the first in the gospels.
This baptism at the same time furnished the occasion
on which Jesus the man became also the anointed of
the Lord. There are two accounts of the manner in
which this came about.
I. According to Mk. 110 f. Jesus as he comes up
from Jordan sees the heaven opened and the Holy
Ghost descending upon him, and hears a voice from
heaven saying ‘ Thou art my beloved son in whom I am
well pleased.’
These words, taken from the Hebrew text (not 65)of Is. 42 I
and repeated also on the mount of transfiguration, are employed
to convey the testimony that God himself has chosen Jesus as
the Messiah, and the spirit of God enters into him in order to
bring to their fulfilment the words of Is. 42 I I1 2.
2. T h e procedure of the unknown hand by which
the short account of the baptism of Jesus in Jordan
was introduced into the Third Gospel (Lk. 321 f: ) was
bolder. H e was not satisfied with ascribing the divine
vocation to the Messiahship ; he wished also to give an
immediate divine testiniony to the divine sonship of
Jesus.
For this end he made use of the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 27;
cp Acts 13 33), and introduced these words as spok,en by God :
‘Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee. Thus the
passage in Lk. was read, in the Greek Church down to about
300 A. D. and in the Latin West down to and beyond 360 A.D.
The picture it conveyed led to the incarnation being
connected with the baptism in such manner that the
feast of the Epiphany-the manifestation of God upon
1 [See N AZARETH , 8 4, and cp GALILEE, 5 5.1
3348
 NATIVITY
earth-came to be at once the festival of the baptism
and of the birth of Christ until the Christmas festival
began to come into vogue. At the same time, con-
currently with this more highly pitched account, the
older version of the miracle at Jordan was amplified in
Mt. and in the Gospel of the Hebrews with new
wonders ; the Fourth Gospel also goes far beyond the
original story.
The mythical pictures thus produced could not per-
manently satisfv believing hearts. The conception of
16. Co,sse ofo the divinity of Jesus which wasgaining
development. ever more and more ground found it
increasingly impossible to postpone to
his thirtieth year the c&secr&on of Jesus -as the
Messiah or his adoption as the son of God. It was
felt that he must have been G o d s chosen instrument
from his very birth. Thus arose the story of the
nativity. It arose and took shape at a time when
the consecration of Jesus to the Messiahship had al-
ready become firmly associated with the baptism in
Jordan. If the two had arisen a t the same time. or if
the story of the nativity had been the earlier to come
into currency, the miracle a t the baptism could not
have received the shape which it now has, or could
not have arisen at all ; the one excludes the other.
Here, also, there was a choice of paths. Just as in
the description of the baptism we have the divine
attestation on the one hand and the divine generation
on the other, so also here alongside of the miraculous
conception there was possible a mode of representation
more in harmony with Jewish modes of thought in
which divine revelations at his Conception and birth
attested to the human son of Joseph and Mary his
election to be the Messiah.
Such a representation in point of fact lies before us
in Lk. If we bear in mind what we were able to ob-
16. Lk.: divina serve a t Bethlehem we can become
attestation. free of the fetters laid upon us by long
habituation to a sacred tradition. T o
Joh. Hillmann ( Z P T 17221 8 ) belongs the merit of
having conclusively shown that the two verses in Lk.
(134J ), the only verses in the Third Gospel in which
the supernatural birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary is
stated, are incompatible with the entire representation
of the rest of chaps. 1 and 2, and thus must have been
interpolated by a redactor. These two verses once
removed, what remains is a purely Jewish-Christian
account of the birth of the Messiah, still resting upon
the foundation of the old and genuine tradition that
Jesus was the offspring-the firstborn offspring-of the
marriage of Joseph and Mary, and no word is to be
found in it which does not admit of full explanation
from Jewish ideas concerning the coming Messiah.
The angel Gabriel, sent by God, comes to Nazareth
to a virgin named Mary who is betrothed to Joseph, a
descendant of David ($$ O ~ K O UA a u c d , 127); after words
of salutation he tells her that she is destined to conceive
and bear a son who shall be called the son of the Most
High and shall sit upon the throne of his (fore-) father
David (and so forth, 131-33), and then concludes by
telling her of what has happened to Elizabeth her kins-
woman (1365). T h e events in the house of Elizabeth
(139-56) and the psalm of Zacharias (168 j? ) only serve
to glorify the Messiah even in the womb of his mother,
and to prepare the way for his future relations with
John. Shortly before Mary’s time has come the journey
to Bethlehem--explained, not well, as we have seen
(S I O ) . by the census-is interposed ; Joseph must be-
take himself to the city of David in order to be entered
on the register there because he is ‘of the house of
David ’ (24), and this, too, along with Mary his wife.
Oirv Mapraw .iiY V ~ C Ka &~ o 8 , 2 5 , is the reading of the Syrian
palimpsest of Sinal discovered by Mrs. Agnes Lewis Smith, and
cum Maria uzore sua jregxantc is also attested by the re
Hieronymian texts of Verona and Vercelli, as also the Col%ei
tinus-a reading which speaks for itself, even apart from the
weight of the testimony by which it is supported. In place of
3349
NATIVITY
t was afterwards substituted the reading w v M. ; p v v w u -
r e ‘ q a;& (so NB and the Lat. vers. of Brescia), and, as we so
ie(uentl$ find happening, in due course the two readings came
:o be combined by contamination so that t h e Oirv M. 6 &uq-
~ the Lat. vers. of Corbei, of Eusebius
rrcup&r) a$r+ - ~ J V ~ LofK A,
md C y h Catech. 12, 31, arose. That we have here a case of
real contdniination is seen very plainly in the old Freising IMS
in which the ancient variants .iiyuvarri a h o J and r $ ~ t ~ v q s w -
aivq aGrG still stand together in immediate juxtaposltlon.
Since,’ then, a t the beginning of the story (127) there
is twice prominently made, in accordance with unani-
mous tradition, the statement that Maryat the time of the
Annunciation, although betrothed to Joseph, was still
a virgin, we are in a position to infer with certainty
from 25 that in the original form of the narrative after
1 3 8 stood the further statement, hardly to be dispensed
with (even though judged inadmissible by the redactor
who interpolated 1 3 4 f.),that Mary was then taken to
wife by Joseph, and that she conceived by him ; with
this best agrees the reminiscence in 2 2 1 that the name
of Jesus had been given by the angel ‘before he was
conceived in the womb. ’ That Jesus was the first child
of this legitimate marriage is expressly stated ( 2 7 ) , -
‘ and she brought forth her firstborn son ’ ; r b u r p w r 6 -
TOKOV is the word, not such an expression as pouoycvi).
and tradition took no exception to the phrase, which
has even been interpolated in Mt. 125. Jesus is thus
recognised to have been the eldest of the sons and
daughters of Joseph, who are referred to in this very
gospel itself. In accordance with the Jewish ceremonial
law the circumcision and naming of the child follows
on the eighth day ( 2 2 1 ) , and after forty days comes the
dedication of the firstborn and the offering in the temple
at Jerusalem ( 2 2 2 8 ); the whole procedure presupposes
a normal birth from a legitimate marriage, and in 227
are the express words, ‘ W h e n the parents brought in
the child Jesus.’ T h e salutations of the aged Symeou
(229-35) and Anna the prophetess (236-38) are entirely
in the spirit of the promise of the Messiah as given in
the words of the angel, alike to Mary (131-33) and to
the shepherds ( 2 11, cp 2 14). Finally, the incident be-
tween the parents and their son, now twelve years of
age, in the temple (241 &),which has already been
spoken of, stands upon the same footing.
W e discern accordingly in Lk.’s account a Jewish-
Christian endeavour to invest the birth and childhood
of Jesus with the miraculous halo that seemed to be
demanded by his call to Messiahship. T h e miracles.
however, are limited to miracles of divine revelation
brought by angels or inspired by the Holy Ghost. The
historical tradition which lay at the heart of the gospel
-that Jesus was born as the eldest child of Joseph and
Mary of Nazareth-is still faithfully preserved. Only,
the demand that Jesus should through his father belong
to the house of David and be born in David’s city of
Bethlehem had already become the indispensable pre-
supposition for the whole narrative, completely domin-
ated as it was by Messianic ideas. The redactor,
while effecting a compromise with the legend as set
forth in Mt. by his interpolation of 1 3 4 f . , a t the same
time introduced an alien and irreconcilable trait into
Lk.’s work if it is to be regarded as an artistic unity.
T h e narrative of Mt., on the other hand, is entirely
dominated by the presupposition that Jesus was con-
ceived by the power of the Holy Ghost
*.:&,. in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Joseph
receives the revelation, ‘that which is
begotten in her is of the Holy Ghost,’ and following
the divine direction, ‘ knew her not till she had brought
forth a son.‘ It is possible to regard the divine beget-
ting as a carrying back, in point of time, of the view
of the baptism-miracle which we find in Lk. There
is something entirely new, however, in addition-that
he was conceived and born of a virgin. Here we un-
questionably enter the circle of pagan ideas. Even
the Church fathers were unable to shut their eyes to
this. The idea is quite foreign to Judaism, whilst for
Grzco-Roman antiquity it continued in full activity till
3350
 NATIVITY
after the Augustan age. The present writer has already
(see below, § 21)given the evidence for this, and he could
make it still stronger now. The expression in Is. 7 14
could not possibly have given occasion for the shaping of
this birth-story. The context of the passage says nothing
about an expected Messiah, and speaks merely of a
young woman, not of a ‘virgin’ as the word is in
d (see IMMANUEL).T h e efforts which have been
made to disprove the unwelcome intrusion of heathen
mythology into the substance of the gospels have been
ineffectual. It is dangerous to cite evidence that proves
the opposite of what it is asked to establish.
In a remarkable passage (De cherub. 13 ; 1180 A) Philo,
while pressing the actual language of the OT, seeks to show
that it was God who had made Sarah Leah Rebekah and
Zipporah to be fruitful. Though this’does Lot teach &in
birth it certainly teaches divine generation. It ought not how-
ever, to be overlooked that Philo designates this d o c t h e a
mystery, a sacred revelation, in other words something quite
new ; the new knowledge first dawned upon him in the Hellen-
istic atmosphere of Alexandria, at the fountainhead of all those
ideas with which he was able to give a new depth to the tradi-
tions of his people.
T h e embroidery comes from the same source as the
warp and the woof. T h e appearance of a new star in
The star, the sky heralding the birth had been pre-
pared for by the popular faith of antiquity.
etc. By astrologers it was even taught that a
new star rises at the birth of every man (see Julianus Halic.
in Rhein. Mus. 55328, 2. 11; cp Frazer, GH2),2 2 2 8 ) .
With an event so late even as the birth of Alexander
Severus was associated the legend that the future world-
empire of the child was foretold by the sudden appear-
ance of a star of the first magnitude (Lampridius, ch. 13);
the story may be of Semitic origin. Also the recogni-
tion and proclamation of the birth of a new king of the
Jews by the magi learned in star-lore finds its parallel
in a legend concerning Alexander recorded in Cicero
(de Diuin. i. 23 47 ; cp 41 go). That the magi should
have come in person to do homage to the new-born
lord may perhaps, as has been pointed out to the
present writer by A. Dieterich, have originated in the
journey of homage made by the Parthian king Tiridates
to Nero in Rome, an expedition which attracted very
great attention (see Cassius Dio, 632 J ) , especially in
the provinces, such as Asia, which actually witnessed
the progress of the king with his royal train, and had
to entertain him in a manner suitable to his rank.
Pliny, who alludes to this event (NN3016), actually
calls Tiridates magus, and mentions that he had magi
in his suite (mugos secum adduzevut), from whom the
emperor hoped to learn the secrets of magic. T h e
reign of Nero may have been exactly the period at
which the legends of the divine birth of Jesus began to
take shape in the Christian world, and it is very possible
that tidings of the Neronic persecutions spread from
Rome may have had their share in bringing about the
introduction of the picture of a bloodthirsty tyrant into
the story of the childhood. A massacre of innocents
and, as the motive for it, fear of the threatened advent
of a new ruler, were already current material for legend,
as is shown by the.romantic story of Marathus con-
cerning the birth of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 94).
The flight into Egypt, or, to speak more accurately,
the return from Egypt, is ill-explained.
An angel of the Lord admonishes Joseph to return-as
formerly he had warned him to flee--‘ for they are dead which
sought the young child’s life’ (Mt. 2 2 0 ) ;
19. The Egypt hut ‘when he heard that Archelails was
incident. reigning in Judza ... he was afraid to go
there,’ and ‘being warned of God in a dream,
he turned aside into the parts of Galilee (Mt. 2 22). It is not
easy to understand why the command to return should not in
the story have been postponed till after the deposition of
Archelaus (6 A.D.) if it were not for the reason that, in that
case, there would he no motive left for the selection of Nazareth
as a home. Yet to explain the selection, there is introduced,
awkwardly enough, a double revelation to Joseph.
Why is it Egypt that is selected as the place of
refuge? W e may reply that in the first century, when
Jews had long been gathered together in great numbers
335’
NATURE WORSHIP
in Alexandria, it was natural to think of this neighbour-
ing land. iMythologica1 ideas also, however, may have
had their unconscious influence; it is to Egypt that,
when attacked by the giant Typhon, the Olynipian gods
take their flight.
Thus for the whole birth- and childhood-story of Mt.
in its every detail it is possible to trace a . pagan
_ sub-
20. The result. stratum.
It must have arisen in
Gentile-Christian circles, probably in
those of the province of Asia, and then was to some
extent legitimated by its narrator, in accordance with
the tendency manifested throughout the whole of the
First Gospel (see Resch, Kindheifscscvang. 19 J?), by
citation of prophetic ‘ words ’ in its support.
Thus did the divine birth and nature of Christ receive
the stamp of authority for all time, and the Jewish-
Christian representation of Lk., which knew the Messiah
only as a son of man, had to be heightened by the
introduction of the angelic messages and so brought
into conformity with the demands of faith.
The divine birth and nature of Christ thus became
gospel. To theosophic speculation the task which now
presented itself was that of bringing this dogma into
reconcilability with the fact of the humanity of Jesus.
It was only after a struggle lasting for centuries that
the church succeeded in setting up a unanimous doctrine
upon the subject. T h e struggle indeed would still have
arisen even if the gospel of the virgin-birth had not
lain before it in writing. Even before the gospel had
been written and attained currency the docetic doctrine
that the son of God had been sent down from heaven
and had lived only seemingly the life of a man in the
world, as also the Johanniue conception of the pre-
existence of the divine logos, had already been formu-
lated.
E. F. Gelpke, Die Iugendgesch. des N e r m , 1841 ; P. Lob-
stein, Die Lehre zIon der iibcrnatiirlichen Geburt Chridi:
Chrisiologische Sfudielz), 1896 ; A. Resch,
21. Literature. Das Kidhziisevangrlium nach Lucas U.
Xatthaeus, r897( TU 105); L. Conrady, Die
Qucllederkanonischn Kindhcifsgesch./esa’s,19- ; H. Usener,
Religionsgeschichfliche Uniersuchuegcn :I. Das Weihnachts-
fest 1889,pp. 69fl ; Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem f
(18d8). Hartland LegendofPerseus; letters by Allen, Badham,
Chards ConyheAre etc on the Sinaitic Palimpsest and the
Virgin-hrth, in the hca&zy, from 17th Nov. 1894 to 29th June
1895 ; J. Hillmann,, . ‘ D i e Kindheitsgesch. Jesu nach Lucas
kritisch untersucht in ZPT, 1891,17191-261; A. W. Zumpt,
Das Geburtsjflhr Chrisfi, 1869. H. U.
NATURE-WORSHIP. In the article IDOLATRY
(5 2f.) the development of the ideas about nature
1. Nature- which become a factor in religion has been
outlined, from the earliest stage, in which
worship man conceives natural objects as animated
p$G:iOf by a demonic life. through one in which
religion. Fhese objects and localities are permanently
inhabited by.a numen or frequented by it,
to that in which they are the visible symbols wherein
the presence of a god is graciously manifested, and,
finally, to the rejection of the symbol as incompatible
with the conception of a god whose invisible presence
fills earth and heaven. T h e first of these stages had
been left behind by the religion of Israel long before our
knowledge of it begins: but innumerable customs of
social life and ritual observance that had their root
and reason in animistic beliefs survived even to the
latest times, and doubtless the beliefs themselves
lingered as more or less obscure superstitions among
certain classes of the people, as they do to the present
day among the peasantry in Christian Europe.
It is obvious that the nature of the object itself
determined how far it could be carried along by the
advancing religious conceptions. A holy mountain,
for example, most easily became the abode of a god,
whose power was manifested in storm and lightning, or
in the beneficent rain-clouds which gathered around its
t o p ; a cave near the summit might be in a special
sense his dwelling-place.’ A natural rock which had
1 So perhaps at Horeb, I K. 19 9.
3352
 NATURE-WORSHIP
been revered as the seat of a numen might become a
rock-altar or a ma@&. in which a deity no longer
bound to the spot received the sacrifices of his wor-
shippers and answered their requests ; and might even
finally be understood by higher spirits as only the
symbol of the divine presence. On the other hand,
the sacred tree was not so easily dissociated from its
own life ; its spirit might be very potent in its sphere,
but it was to the end a tree-spirit, even if some greater
name was given it. Consequently, the beliefs and
customs connected with trees and with vegetation
generally have been left behind in the progress of
religion and often put under its ban, though nowhere
extirpated by it.
W e find this true in the OT. T h e mountains and
the sacred wells and springs which once had, as in
2. In Israel : some instances we can still perceive, their
holy trees. own numina, have been taken possession
of by Yahwk, and become his holy places,
seats of his worship; no traces of a distinctive cultus
have been preserved ; the rocks, so far as they have a
religious association at all, are his altars or memorial
stones.3
Sacred trees, too, are found at the sanctuaries of
Yahwk ; 4 at Beersheba, by the holy wells, was a
tamarisk which Abraham planted with religious rites
(Gen.2133);6 at Hebron Abraham built an altar at the
' i h iMamr2 ( 1 3 1 6 ) , ~where he dwelt (14x3) ; beneath
the tree YahwP appeared to him in theophany ( 1 8 1 8 ) .
At the '&?in m i d a t Shechem Yahwb appeared to
Abraham (Gen. 1 2 6 J ) ; under the 'Phih at the same
place Jacob buried the idols and amulets of his Aramzean
household (Gen. 3 5 4 ) ; there Joshua erected a ma+%ih
beneath the ' d d h which is in the sanctuary of YahwP
(Josh. 2426) ; by the same tree Abimelech was made
king (Judg. 96) ; near Shechem stood also an 'Zlin
ml'inlnitim (Judg. 937) ; the tomb of Deborah was
under a tree near Bethel named 'aZZin dakkiith (Gen.
358) ; beneath the ' i l d h at Ophrah the angel of Yahwk
appeared to Gideon, who built an altar on the spot
(Judg. 61119 24). Compare also the place-names, Elim
(Ex. l61), Elath ( 2 K. 14zz), Elon (Judg. 1211) ; see
rlso Judg.45 I S. 142 226 3 1 1 3 ( I Ch. 1012). T h e
words h, 358 ('ZZ& 'alldh), ~ih ('ZLin, aZZin),7
ordinarily mean 'holy tree' (cp Is. 1.9) ; the suhstitu-
tions made in the Targums and by Jerome ( L e . ,
Jerome's Jewish teachers) show how keenly this was
felt at a late time. T h e etymological connection of the
word with Sfr ('il),' numen, god,' is very probable.8
T h e names ' d i n m8r& ' d i n d i n l n i m , point to tree
oracles; and though these names, like many of the
others, are probably of Canaanite origin, we may
observe that David takes an omen from the sound of
a marching in the tops of the 6dkRd trees ( z S . 524).
Of an actual tree cult we have no evidence in the
O T , the prophetic irony directed against the veneration
of stocks (p)and stones more probably
3'
referring to ' Z n i h s or wooden idols.
incgkEd But the places of worship 'under every
lnxuriant tree ' had at least originally a
deeper reason than that ' the shade was good' (Hos.
4 13) ; and we shall probably not err if we see in beliefs
See I DOLATRY $ 4 . MASSEBAH$ 6 .
2 This is far froH s a y k g that no &ch rites were practised,
Y See MASSEBAH, $5 5, 7
4 For references to the literature see col. 2153,n. 9.
.." Stade and v. Gall (KuZfstatfe,t, 47) would read instead of
e s d 'tamarisk,' '&+ah, connecting the verse with 26 25 (Isaac).
6 6, Gpir ; the plur. in ,MT is an alteration with a purpose
like that of Tg. Vg. 'plain. T h e holy tree sounded heathenish.
Abraham's oak (or terebinth) was an ohject of veneration in the
time of Constantine, who had the altars heneath it destroyed
(see Rel. Pal., p. 711 3).An Abraham's oak is still shown
(see.7ewisk EncylojqprprZia 193).
7 The diversity of proAunciation in M T is not a consistent
dkcrimination of ' oak' and 'terebinth.' See Moore, Jud'es
(Int. Cornin.), I Z I ~ ,and v. Gall, K u l t s t i t t e n , 2 4 8 .
8 Levv, Phon. Stad. 1 1 9 5 (r8j6); and many.
9 See Jer. 2 20 3 6 13 17 z Ezek. 6 13 20 28, etc.
3353
NATURE-WORSHIP
which in many other parts of the world have been
associated with the powers of tree-spirits and the life
of vegetation at least one root of the sexual licence
which at these sanctuaries was indulged in in the name
of religion.' Doubtless the custom existed, which still
prevails in Syria as in many other countries, of hanging
upon the trees bits of clothing, ornaments, and other
things which keep up the connection between the man
to whom they belonged and the spirit of the tree.z At
least one law-the three years 'orhih of fruit-trees when
they begin to bear (Lev. 19 q-~j)-perpetuates a parallel
between the life of tree and man which was once more
than an analogy.3 The prohibition of mixed planta-
tions ( k d ' d y i m , Dt. 229) is probably another instance
of the same kind. T h e prohibition of reaping the
corner of a field (Lev. 199 2 3 7 ~ ) ,though ~ now a
charitable motive is attached to it, had primitively a
very different reason : the comer was left to the grain-
spirit.5 That the first sheaf of the harvest, the first
cakes made of the new grain, were originally not an
offering to the God of the land, but a sacrament of the
corn-spirit, is shown by similar evidence.6
If all this belongs to an age which to the Israelites
was prehistoric, the gardens of Adonis (Is. 1710, see
A DONIS ) and the women's mourning for Tamniuz
(Ezek. 8 14, see T A M M U Z ) ' show that in mythologised,
and doubtless foreign, forms, the great drama of plant
life-the blooniing spring, the untimely death under
the fierce midsummer sun, and the resurrection of the
new year, maintained its power over the Israelites as
well as their neighbours.
The holy wells and springs in Palestine,* like the
mountains, were taken possession of by Yahwk when
4, water he supplanted the baals in their old haunts.
libation. No trace remains in the O T of distinctive
rites or restrictions connected with sacred
waters such as we know in abundance among the
neighbours of the Israelites. But one ceremony was
observed annually in the temple, at the Feast of
Tabernacles. which must be briefly mentioned here.s
At this season water was drawn from Siloam, carried,
amid the blare of trumpets, into the temple precincts
through a gate called for this reason the water-gate,
and poured upon the altar,l0 running down through a
drain into the subterranean receptacle. T h e reason
for the rite is given in another place : ' T h e Holy One,
Blessed is h e ! said, Pour out water before me at the
Feast, in order that the rains of the year may be blessed
to you.'11 T h e libation was thus an old rain charm,
a piece of mimetic magic.I2 A very similar ceremony
at Hierapolis is described by Lucian.I3
On sacred animals and supposed survivals of totem
cults and superstitions see C LEAN AHD U NCLEAN .
T h e heavenly bodies, especially the sun. moon, and
(five) planets, appeared to the ancients to be living beings
and since their influence on human welfare
5. The
was manifest and great they were adored as
deities (see Wisd. 132 8 ) . T h e relative
bodies.14 prominence of these gods in religion and
mythology differs widely among peoples upon the same
1 See, e g . , Hos. 4 13-15. etc. ; cp H ARLOT. On the subject
in eneral see Frazer GBP) 2 2 0 4 8 Cp 1 1 9 2 8
#See Tylor, P d n . Cu?t.t.(3)2223 8 ; W R S Re(. Sem.r'J
1835 195 : Doughty, A r . Des. 1449f- ; cp DRESS, $ 8.
Incidentallv it makes it nrnhahle that among the Canaanites
-from whom the custom is Zoubtless derived-&cumcision was
originally performed at puberty (cp CIRCUIKI~ION, $ 6).
4 Perhaps the law which forbids the gathering of a forgotten
sheaf should be included (Dt. 24 19).
5 See Frazer, GBPJ 2 2 2 2 8 , especially 236 n.
6 Frazer Lc., 3198 329.
7 See F A , ~ c . ,1 1 5 8
8 See I DOLATRY , fr 2.
9 See S ACRIFICE , B 36 ; T ABERNACLES 7.
10 ,If. Sacra, 49; Ba6. Succa, 48a,fl'
11 R8sh ha-shinih, 16 a,bottom ; cp Ta'dnith, 2 a.
12 On 'making rain ' see Frazer GBP) 1 8 1 8 2 1 2 1 8
13 De D e s Syvia chap. 13 cp 48 ' W R S R e l Sem.P) z31I:
14 See Tylor, PA=. CuZt.'P)2 28;s ; Scholr, Gdtzcndienst,
412s
3354
 NATURE-WORSHIP
plane of culture and even of the same stock ; they had
a different significance to the settled population of
Babylonia from that which they had for the Arab nomad,'
and besides this economic reason there are doubtless
historical causes for the diversity which are in great part
concealed from us.
That the Israelite nomads showed in some way their
veneration of the sun is most probable ; but there is no
reason to believe that sun-worship was an important
part of their religion. In Palestine the names of several
cities bear witness to the fact that they were seats of the
worship of the snn (Shemesh ; see BETH-SHEMESH, EN- with other heathenish paraphernalia, was destroyed by
SHEMESH ; also K IR - HEXES , T IMNATH- HERES). T h e
best known of these is Beth-shemesh-now 'Ain Shenis-
in the Jndaean lowland, just across the valley from
Zorah, the home of Samson, whose own name shows
that Israelites participated in the cult of their Canaanite
neighbours, and perhaps appropriated elements of a
solar myth.2 It may be questioned whether the worship
of the sun at these places was of native Canaanite origin.
or is to be ascribed to Babylonian influence, such as
we recognise in the case of the names Beth-anath3
and, probably, Beth-dagon. If we may judge from the
evidence of Phcenician names, the worship of the sun
had no such place in the religion of Canaan as Shamash
had in that of the Babylonians and Assyrians,' and it
seems more likely that the god whose cult gives a dis-
tinctive name to certain places was a foreign deity.
These considerations lend some additional probability
to Budde's surmise that the southern Beth-shemesh is
the place designated in the Amarna Tablets, no. 183, to meet the sun a t his rising. These horses were prob-
1. r 4 J , as Blt-Ninib in the district of J e r ~ s a l e m . ~The ably, as elsewhere, white.4 The rite, one of those
name of the city of Jericho-the most natural etymology
of which derives it from Q, moon 6-may indicate that
it was a seat of moon-worship ; but we have no other
evidence of the fact. T h e names of the Desert of Sin and
the holy mountain S INAI ( 4 . v . ) bear witness to the fact
that the region was a centre of the cult of the moon-god
Sin, who was zealously worshipped in Syria (Harran),
Babylonia, and southern Arabia ; in later times Greek
and Latin writers as well as Nabataean inscriptions attest
the worship of the moon by the population of Arabia
Petrzea; the appearance of the new moon is still
greeted by the Bedouins,7 as it was by Canaanites and
Israelites in OT times. T h e religious observance of the
new moon with festal rejoicings and sacrifices belongs
originally to a lunar cult ;8 but, as in many other cases,
this festival and its rites were taken up into the religion
of YahwB-the national religion absorbing the nature
religion. Whether the Canaanite Astarte-worship was
associated with the planet Venus we do not certainly
know ; the worship of the Q UEEN OF H EAVEN [q.v.] in
the seventh century was evidently regarded as a new and
foreign cult. Cp MOON.
T h e opinion, formerly widely entertained and not yet
everywhere abandoned, that the Canaanite worship of
Baal and Astarte was primitive sun- and moon-worship,
is without foundation ; the identification-so far as it
took place in the sphere of religion at all-is late and
influenced by foreign philosophy (see B AAL , 5 z J ,
A SHTORETH, 5 4).
If the evidence of the worship of the heavenly bodies
in Israel in older times is thus scanty and indirect, the
case is otherwise in the seventh and sixth c e n t ~ r i e s . ~ already established in the eighth century; see A MOS, Q 13,
1 In southern Arabia the worship of the sun and moon is
strikingly prevalent.
2 See Moore, Judges (Int. Conzm.), 325 f: 364 f:; and cp
S AMSON .
3 Notice the proximity of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath in
Galilee, Judg. 1 3 3 .
4 See Baeth. Beitr. 61.
5 See H ERES , M OUNT .
8 The form, shortened from ]in,, is related to in*precisely
as 1iVnv to vnv. Cp J ERICHO.
i Donghty AY. Des. 1366.
8 See Speicer, De Zez. d., lib. 3 diss. 4, and Chrysost. Hom.
6 in Mats.
9 Am. 5 26 cannot be taken as evidence that these cults were
3355
NATURE-WORSHIP
Jeremiah predicts that the hones of all classes in Jeru-
salem shall be exhumed and spread out before ' the sun
and the moon and the whole host of heaven whom they
have loved and served and followed and consulted and
prostrated themselves to ' (Jer. 82). T h e deuteronomic
law pronounces the penalty of death against the man or
woman who worships the sun or the moon or the host
of heaven (17 3) ; cp also Dt. 4 15 19. T h e introduction
of this cult in Jerusalem is ascribed to Manasseh, who
built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts
of the temple ( 2K. 21 3 5 ) ; the apparatus of this worship,
Josiah in his reformation (621B.c.) and the priests put
out of the way ( z K.234J). T h e altars of the astral
cults were under the open sky, frequently upon the flat
roofs of houses (Jer. 19 13 Zeph. 15) ; probably the altars
on the roof-the ' upper story ' of Ahaz-(z K. 23 I Z ) , ~
apparently an addition to the temple, were of this
sort. Sacrifices were burnt upon them ( z K. 235). T h e
heavenly bodies needed no idol, they were visible gods ;
and although various symbols of the sun are found in
Assyria as well as Egypt, it is not certain that there were
such in Jerusalem. Horses dedicated to the sun (cp
N ATHAN - MELECH ) were stabled at one of the entrances
to the temple, apparently in an annex on the western side
( 2 K. 23rr), and with them chariots of the sun. The
horses, animals sacred to the sun (Bochart, 1 1 4 1 5 , ed.
Rosenm. ), were not kept for sacrifice but, harnessed to
the chariots, were driven in procession; according to
the Jewish commentators, driven out (toward the E.)
imitative acts of cultus which have their ultimate origin
in mimetic magic, probably came to the Jews from
A ~ s y r i a though
,~ the special sacredness of the horse to
the sun seems rather to be of Iranian origin.6 Another
rite is described by Ezekiel (8 16): in the inner court of
the temple, at the very door of the v a h , between the
prostyle and the great altar, men were standing with
their backs to the sanctuary of Yahwb and their faces to
the E., prostrating themselves eastward to the sun. T h e
words in the next verse, translated in RV ' they put the
branch to their nose,' have been thought to refer to
another feature of the ritual, similar to the use of the
bunch of twigs called buresma, held by the Persians
before the mouth when at prayer ; not only this interpre-
tation, however, but the connection of the words with
the sun-worship of v. 16, is uncertain.' T h e throwing of
kisses to the sun and moon is alluded to in Job (31 26-28)
as a superstitious custom ; it corresponds to the actual'
kissing of an idol ( I K. 1918 Hos. 132).
I n the references to this worship, beside sun and
moon, two other names appear which require a word of
comment. One of these, @bE hdf-ia'rndim (OT$? N?:),
'the host of heaven' (6in Dt. d ~ 6 u p o s706 odpavoii,
elsewhere Girvaprs, u ~ p ;dVg. mi1iitiu). is a collective
term, sometimes apparently including the sun and moon,
sometimes designating the other heavenly bodies ; see
Dt. 419, 'the sun and moon and stars-all the host
of heaven.' T h e word 'host' (@a') is the common
Hebrew word for army ; the stars, conceived as living
beings, not only by their number (Jer. 332z), but also by
their orderly movement as though under command,
CHIUN. Nor, in view of the silence of the eighth-century
prophets, is 2 K. 17 16 sufficient proof that this worship was one
of the sins which brought destruction on Israel.
1 Cp Straho, xvi. 426 (p. 784), Nahatzans, to the sun ; Isaac of
Antioch, ed. Bickell, 2 2x0; 7'0s. Z&ichim, 13 15.
2 The words I n N n.iy seem to be a gloss.
3 Lucian, Dea Svrza,
. . : Julian,
34 . Orut. 4 ; Wisd. 13 2 J ,
1 0 8
"p4 See HORWQ 4.
5 See Jensen: KosmoZ. 1 0 8 ~ 7 cp
; Jastrow, Rrl. B d . Ass.
I7:<ee Hehn. KuZiurpjlanzcr u. Hausthierr('V, 42
7 See Toy, 'Ezek.' (SBOT); Kraetzschmar, 'Ezecf?(HK).
8 Luciap, Desaltationc, chap. 17; Tertull. Apol. chap. 16etc. ;
Scholz, Gofzendienst, 55.
3356
 NAUM
resembled an army in the field.' In at least one old
passage, the phrase ' the host of heaven ' designata
the beings (cp ' a certain spirit,' zn. 2 1 ) who form Yahwb's
court and execute his will ( I K. 22 19 8 , Micaiah's
vision ; cp also Josh. 5 1 3 J ) . z It is unnecessary to
suppose that the author's conception here is essentially
different from that implied in the more common use of
the phrase, as though in the latter the stars were meant
as merelyastronomical bodies and in the former ' angels' ;
unnecessary, therefore, to seek a remote connection
between senses which only our modern ideas have
separated.3 The ' host of heaven ' are the ministers of
YahwB.'
The other word, maszd6fh, occurs only in 2 K. 2 3 5
( n i s p , d p u ~ o u p w t l , Vg. duodecim signa, Pesh. muu-
zhithi, Tg. NQ>!Q), and-if the words are rightly identi-
fied-in Job 3 8 3 2 ( n i i p ) ,and is variously understood of
the signs of the zodiac (so Jerome above), or the planets.
It appears to be a loan-word from Assyr. maneaZttu.
' station, abode,' and points to the origin of the religion.5
For another cult of this class see Q UEEN OF H EAVEN .
W e have seen that the worship of the 'sun and
moon and the whole host of heaven' came in under
Assyrian influence in the seventh century ;
6.
It flourished under Manasseh ; was tem-
porarily suppressed, with other foreign religions, by
Josiah in 621 ; but sprang up again after his death, and
continued in full vigour down to the fall of the kingdom
of Judah in 586 ; nor did that catastrophe extinguish it
(see Q U EE N OF H E A V E N , 5 I ). W e cannot doubt that
astrological divination, if not the worship of the heavenly
bodies, was one of thestrongest temptations of heathenism
to the Jews in Babylonia (see Is. 47 13, cp Dan. 2 z etc. ).
The development of theological monotheism involved
the assertion of Yahwe's supremacy over the heavenly
bodies : he created them, he leads out their host in its
full number, calls them all by name, so great is his
power not one of them dares be missing (Is. 4026, cp 45 12
Gen. 1 1 4 8 Neh. 9 6 ) . They are not mere luminaries set
in the sky, hut superhuman beings; it is by YahwB's
ordinance that the nations worship them (Dt. 4 .sf., cp
3 2 8 6 , Jubilees, 1 5 3 r J ) ; the final judgment falls no
less upon the high host on high, who guide and govern
the nations in history, than on the kings of the earth on
earth ; they shall together be shut up in prison (Is.
2421-23, Enoch 1813-16 211-6, Rev. 91f: I I ; cp Dan.
8 rof:).C
Philo is therefore in accord not only with Greek
thinkers hut with the O T in representing the stars as
intelligent living beings ; they are of a ' divine and happy
and blessed nature,' nay, 'manifest and perceptible gods'
-expressions which, as he means them, are not incom-
patible with his monotheism.' The Essenes are said to
have observed certain religious customs which imply
peculiar veneration for the snn ; but whatever may have
been the origin of the practices, it may be assumed that
they had found in them some symbolical meaning in
harmony with the fundamental d o p a of their Judaism.
G. F. M.
NAUM (NAOYM [Ti. WH]), Lk.325 AV, RV
KAHUM(4.v.).
NAVE. I. 32,gab; NWTON, NWTOC ; I K . 7 3 3
AV, RV 'felloe.' See WHEEL, I a.
2. fii?fzZr,
l", IK. 7 33 RV, AV 'spoke.' See WHEEL, I c.
NAVE (I\> ; N ~ Y H[BKAC]; nave), Ecclus. 461,
AV, I<V N U N ( y . v . ) . The modern en-iV@ira (as it is called by the natives)
1 See S TARS , S 4.
a See ANGELS$ 2 .
3 So e.g. Dr&er in Hastings' BD 2 430.
On' late: passages of similar tenor see below 9 6.
5 Del. Prol. 142 : Ass. NWB 457 ;IJensen, kosmol. 348 : cp
MAZZALOTH, STARS, p 3, d.
6 See Baudissin, Stud. 1 1 1 8 8 . ; Smend, Z A TW 4 zoo (1884) ;
Duhm, Iesaia, loc. etc.
7 Drumrnond, Philo, 1283 ; see also Baudissin, Sfud. 11zbfi
8 Jos. B j ii. 8 5 ; see ESSENES, $ 5.
3357
NAZARETH
'Js,
NAVY. I . .. N ~ .Y C c, h s i s , I K. 9 2 6 ( E V 'navy
of ships '), 27, 10 I I 22. See SHIP.
a. ~ 6 h 0 e I Macc. 117 (Vg. navium multifud~,,R V w
armament '), 2 Alacc. 12 9 (Vg. naves, RV 'fleet ') 14 I (Vg.
naves, R V ' fleet '). See SHIP.
NAZARENES ( ~ a z w p a l o [Ti. l WH]), the ' sect'
(alpcurs) whose ' ringleader ' (rpwrourdsvs), according
to the orator TERTULLUS ( q . v . ) ,was Paul (Acts245).
* Nazarenes ' at once suggests ' Nazareth ' ; Blazs thinks
that there is an implication of contempt. But was
'Jesus of Nazareth' a contemptuous title? All that
we can say is that ' Nazarenes ' is specifically Jewish, as
' Christians ' or ' Chrestians ' (see CHRISTIAN, N A M E
OF, 5 I ) is specifically Gentile. It seems originally
to have meant ' Galilixans,' and to have expressed the
same historical fact as the accusation formulated in Lk.
2 3 5 (cp Acts lay), ' H e stirs up the people, teaching
throughout all Judzea, and beginning from Galilee unto
this place. ' A Jewish-Christian sect afterwards appro-
priated the term.
At the time of Epiphanius the sect was to he found in Coele-
1 , . .
Svria. Decanolis (Pella). and Basanitis (Cocabe). According to
I~
that authority (t'an. 2!17)they were J& pure'and h p l e , h
recoEni5ed the new cweimnt as well as the old, atid Lelicvcd i i i
!he reiurrection and in the one God and his Son Jrsu- C l A t .
lertullus, huwiver, is made tu m e thr t,erm h'n7arriies in the
broad senw of 'folluwcrt uf Jesus': i t 15 ;iisociaiyd no Joulflt
with disparaging krni,, but i, n ~ int itself dinparagiiig.
NAZARETH (p,azap&i and N ~ Z ~ ~are
E Tliest
attested; Nacapa [Ti. W H ] is found in 311.4 1 3 [N"U* 331, .a0
[AI, .w[B"l, -fB[N'I)]mdinLk.4 16-a[Nl<+33],-af3IA],-a~l;\l,
.e8 [ U l ; Keitn, j i s u van .\hean:, 1319 2 421 Y670 argue,
rtrungly for Nmcapa), whence Nazarene (SaSapqu6c 113. \$'Ill,
Alk. 124 1047 1111.A1, -opqvos [])I, -wpatoc [NACI ; It67 -aprpoc
IIICLI, -opqvoe [L)], - w p a u x [ A I ; I 6 6 -apqvoc I N , etc.], -wpatoc
[L-\], Lk. 4 34 -opqvoc Ir)*l24 1 9 [NHI.], wpatoc [AI)]. Nagw-
paroc f l i . U'Ii], .\lt.L'zj ? t i 7 1 1.k. 1337, -apqvoc [ I ) , etc.]: Jn.
18 5 , -apqvoc IL), err.] ; 7 ; 12 19 ; alw aeveri ur, including Acta 9 5 ,
eiylit times in Acts)
A ' citv of Galilee.' the residence of losenh and Marv :
, I , I
known as Jesus' ' own country' (raspis). because till
1. Associations his baptism he resided there with his
family (Mt. 4 13 21 I I Mk. 1 9 Lk. 1 2 6
and history. 243951 4 1 6 Jn. 146$ [45f.]ActsIO38).
From Nazareth Jesus derived his Talmudic name of
'Jesus the Nazarene ' ( * > Y i m. rd*
-- Sank 43a 1076, S@.
4 7 a ) , and his disciples the name ' Nazarenes' (pigj
Tu'in. 276). I n the Gospels, too, and in Acts Jesus is
constantly called ' Jesus of Nazareth,' and in Acts 24 5
Tertullus calls the Christians ' Nazarenes ' (cp Mt. 223,
on which see below).' Nazareth being thus closely
identified with Jesus, it is strange to find that until the
reign of Constantine (Epiph. adv. Hey. 1136) it had none
but Jewish inhabitants-a fact which is obviously fatal
to the so-called traditional sites in the present town.
I n the time of Epiphanius there were certainly Christians
at Nazareth ; but it was not yet much visited by pilgrims,2
for Jerome in the same century speaks of Paula as
passing with all speed through Nazareth 'the L o r d s
nursing-mother ' (E$. 86).
In the sixth century however a large hasilia stood there
(Antoninus), and in the'fifth a c h k c h over the house of Mary
(ArculO. l h e placesuffered severely from the Moslem conquest;
but the Crusaders honoured it, not only by erecting churches
there, but by transferring thither the see of Scythopolis. The
expulsion of the Franksagain reduced Nazareth tn insignificance ;
but since the eighteenth century it has gradually grown in
importance, and now numbers about IO 000 souls. Its secluded
position, however, and the want of spAngs (there is only one)
render this prosperity, urhich seems to have temporary causes:
rather precarious.
is situated in Lower Galilee, N. of the
2.
great plain of Esdraelon, and nearly mid-
sites. way between the Lake of Gennesaret and
the Mediterranean. It runs up the sides of a hill
1 The Oriental Christians, however, call themselves na@ya
(sing. nasrzni).
2 Was'this due to indignation at the obstinate unhelirf o f the
people of Nazareth, and their 1
their Prophet (Lk. 4 2 8 - 3 ~
3358
 NAZARETH
facing the E. and SE., in a basin entirely shut in by
hills, except on the S., where a narrow rocky gorge
leads to the great plain. Whether the earlier city
occupied the same site. is doubtful ; there are said to be
traces of buildings just above. The monks of Nazareth
assert that in Christ’s time the city extended as far as
the foot of the Jebel Kafsy (or if not, that it was
entirely situated there), a mountain with a precipice
overhanging the plain of Esdraelon, nearly z m. S. by
E. of the present Nazareth. This is connected with
the latest and clumsiest of all the Christian legends of
Nazareth, and such a devout Roman Catholic as
Guerin, though he treats the legend of the ‘Mount of
Precipitation ’ with respect, rejects without hesitation
the theory on which it has come to be based.‘
As Guerin and Robinson agree, there is no reason
whatever why some precipice of the north-western hill
(the Jebel es-Si&) should not have been the scene of the
‘ precipitation’ (KamKp~pviouc‘ to hurl headlong down ’)
intended by the writer of Lk.429. There is a place by
the Maronite church where the hill ‘breaks off in a
perpendicular wall 40 or 50 ft. in height‘ ; this,
Robinson thinks, may well have been the spot whither
the Jews led Jesus. T h e difficulty is that in Mt. 13 54-58
and Mk. 61-6 we have a form of the tradition which
is strictly inconsistent with that in Lk. 4 r6-31. There
are indeed some features in Lk.’s version which
have illustrative value for the ministry of Jesus (viz.
a , his choice of Is. 61I z a as a lesson in the synagogue ;
b, the nse which he makes of the proverb, ‘ Physician,
heal thyself,2 and c, his striking applications of details
in the lives of Elijah and Elisha) ; but two even of these
appear to be inconsistent with the version in Mt. and
Mk., and to have been misplaced ; and most certainly
the story of the frenzied Nazarenes dragging their victim
to a precipice cannot be reconciled with the natural and
probable tradition in the two other Gospels. It is best
not to foster historical illusions ; a true life of Jesus can
well afford to spare the improbable story of the dis-
honour put upon him by his own townsmen.
If sites consecrated by the presence of Jesus must be
had, the two spots which have most claim to be so
regarded are : (I)the spring known variously as ‘ Mary’s
Spring.‘ ‘Jesus’ Spring,’ and ‘ Gabriel‘s Spring,’ and
(2) the summit of the mountain above Nazareth.
( I ) Of the spring, Socin remarks that ‘ as this is the
only spring which the town possesses, it is all but certain
that the child Jesus and his mother were once among
its regular frequenters.’ (2)Anyone oppressed by the
limited life of a village would naturally climb the Jebel
es-Sib (1602ft. above the sea), and he would be amply
rewarded for his pains. Far and near, spots famous in
Israelitish history, as well as fair to look upon, are
spread out before the eye. Mt. Tabor, much of the
Great Plain, Mt. Carmel and the Bay of Acre, the fine
plain of el-Baft6f with Seffiriyeh (Sepphoris) at its S.
end, Safed on its hill, and the distant snows of Hermon
-such is the noble panorama of the Nazareth mountain.
Most important is it, however. to remember that in the
time of Jesus, there were places not far off, throbbing
with the tumultuous industrial life of the present. If
1 Guerin (GaliZLe, 197) suggests that ‘the mountain’ (roc
iipovs) in Lk. 4 29 may mean all the heights around Nazareth
collectively! T h e truth is, however, that the precipice was
selected solely on the ground of its prominence, when seen from
Esdraelon. The legend is of very late origin.
2 The natural interpretation of ‘Ye will surelysay to me,‘etc.
(Lk. 4 z?), is that, according to the Nazarenes, their gifted
townsman ought to have proved his supernatural capacities by
doing something to raise himself in the social scale. Poverty
was no better than a disease. ‘Thou clever physician, who
canst cast out demons from others, produce gold and silver and
fine clothes for thyself, and we will believe thee. Make thyself
fit for the highest society, and cease to consort with the meanest
and vilest. Then we will give u p calling thee “the carpenter,”
and if thou shouldest aim even a t the Messianic crown, the
Galileans shall be a t thy side. The evangelist himself seems to
have misunderstood this traditional saying of Christ.
3 Baed. PuZ.PJ, 282.
3359
NAZARETH
the Nazareth which we know to-day is on the site of
the Nazareth of Jesus, we can understand, as we gaze
from that lofty observatory, the combination of sym-
pathy with reserve or detachnient which characterised
Jesus. Retired, but not shut off from the world-
haunted, but not disturbed, by a sense of adjacent
populousness-Jesus would have found leisure in such
a nook as this to brood over spiritual problems and the
true wants of his people. Dean Farrar has given
eloquent expression to the longing of the Christian heart
to feel that here at least are ‘ holy fields’ which the feet
of Jesus have tr0dden.l
At this point, however, the warning of Dean Stanley
not to build our faith on symbols and sacred sites may
3. The name well be referred to. It is very doubtful
whether the beautiful mountain village of
doubtful. Nazareth was really the dwellingplace of
Jesus. No such town as Nazareth is mentioned in the
OT. in Josephus, or in the Talmud.
It has been suggested Fdeed that Nazareth may be a corrup-
tion of E n S;irid-i.e. the fountain of Sarid’. %rid is the
name of a place on t‘he S. border of Zehnlun’in the M T of
Josh. 19 IO 12.2 Unfortunately, the name is most probably in.
correctly read (see SARID),and the supposed corruption is
difficult to comprehend. As to the Talmud ; it is supposed by
some that Nazareth is the ‘white house on the mountain’o
(in> ps n.3, which was one of the places that supplied wine
for the drink-offerings; and this has been illustrated by the
statement of Quaresmius that Nazareth was formerly called
Meu‘ina udiut--i.e. ‘civitas alba ’ (?). Quaresmius, however
is no older than thelsixteenth century and the ‘white house’ &
the Mishna is probably to he identified with LEBONAH 6 . u . ) .
T h e earliest mention of the name Nazareth (nix3 is thought to
he in a n elegy of Kalir for the ninth day of Ah, where ’j nmggn
is the designation of a ‘course’ of priests settled a t Nazareth.
Kalir’s date is perhaps 900 A.D., hut the elegy is based on a n
ancient Midrash now lost.4 This, however,. is rather vague.
and thequestion wouldstill remain, What ismeant by Nazareth?
Was Nazareth originally the name of a town (or
village) a t all? There are two N T passages which may
well suggest a doubt. One is Mt. 223, ‘ And he came
and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, H e shall be
called a Nazarene.’ T h e passage has been much dis-
cussed, but without sure result. Most commentators
have seen in it an allusion to the prophecy of the ‘ shoot ’
?I., n&r) in Is. 1116 ; so already eruditi Hebrei in
Jerome’s time. It is hardly conceivable, however, that
the synonymous word sdrnak (nm), which had long been
in possession of the field as a Messianic title, should
have been displaced among the Christians by n&er (7::).
It is rather an allusion to Is. 9 I $ , ‘ the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali, .. . Galilee of the Gentiles,’
which is quoted in Mt. 413-16 with reference to Jesus’
dwelling in Capernaum, but which was surely applied
by the first Christians to his early ministry by the
Sea of Galilee-not to his residence at Capernaum, nor
to his earlier dwelling at Nazareth, but to his Galilaean
ministry as a whole. In a word, Nazareth ought to
mean ‘Galilee,’ and Nazarene ought to mean ‘ Galilzan.’
T h e other passage is Jn. 1 4 5 $ , where Philip tells
Nathanael that he and others have found the Great One
spoken of in the scriptures. and Nathanael returns
answer, ’Can there any good thing come out of
Nazareth?’ In passing, we cannot avoid correcting
the text of ZJ. 46. It is plain, both from the context and
from the parallel passage Jn. 7 4 1 . that Nathanael means,
not to put a slight on the moral character of the
Nazarenes, but to affirm as the result of his study of the
scriptures, that the Messiah cannot proceed from
Galilee. Therefore, T L dya0bv must have taken the
place of some title of the Messiah. T h e right reading
must be 6 Byros, ’ the Holy One,’ which is a title of the
Messiah in Acts 3 1 4 Rev. 3 7 (cp John 669, reading
6 Bytos TOO &oD, with WH and RV, Mk. 1 2 4 Lk. 434).
1 Ljfe of Christ, ?a.
2 Edersheim, Lzyc and Times ofJesus fha Messiah, 1146.
3 Mishna, MZir+tath, 97.
4 Neubauer, GPogr. du Tulmud, 82, 85, igo ; cp 117.
3360
 NAZARETH
71 in T L iyaOdv was originally rai (a dittogram) ; ayaO is a cor-
ruption of ayros (0 and u were confounded in pronunciation) ; ow
may perhaps come from 0 , i.e.. 6, transposed).
Thus the passage becomes, ‘ Can the Holy One pro-
ceed from Nazareth,’ and ‘ Nazareth’ (cp Jn. 741. and
also Mt. 2 6 6 9 with v. 7 1 ) means ‘Galilee.’ W e cannot,
indeed, prove this beyond dispute : but we can perhaps
make it as good as certain from a critical point of view.
T h e form Nazareth is probably less correct than
Nazara. and Nazara implies a Hebrew form 1x1, which
is also required to account for 91371, the Talmudic word
for Nazarene (see above, I). It is probably the same
name which enters into the name Gennesar-a more
correct form than GENNESARET ( q . v . ) found
, in I Macc.
1167 [AKC.a-c.b], in Mt. 1434 (D*). and Mk. 6 53 (D),
in Josephus, and in all the Jewish and Christian Aramaic
versions.’
W e can now understand an enigmatical phrase in
the Talmud. According to Neubauer.2 a-ix on$ n.2
(ML’giZZa,70u)is equivalent to n * i x ~ ’ L‘>--Le., , ‘ Beth-
lehem near Nazareth,’ or, ‘ in the district of Nazareth ’ ;
it is to the Bethlehem in Zebulun that reference is
made. Griitz differs slightly from this ; he thinks that
the northern Bethlehem was, in the post-exilic period,
called Nazareth, so that RTP, or n ~ x i somehow . means
Nazareth. T h e truth surely is that Bethlehem n&Jrqyalr
means ‘ the Galilzean Bethlehem.’ Just a s the southern
Bethlehem, however, was sometimes called ’ Bethlehem
(of) Judah ’ (so five times in OT, cp also Mic. 5 z ) , so, we
need not doubt, the northern Bethlehem was called
1x1 DnSnn’I., ‘ Bethlehem (of) Nazar (or NeSar) ‘--i.e.,
Bethlehem of Galilee.
This furnishes a key to the famous problem as to the
birthdace of Tesus. Why was Nazareth called the
4. The birth- 7 r a ~ p f sor ‘fatherland’ of Jesus if he
of Jesus. was really born, not at Nazareth, but
at Bethlehem ? And how came Toseph - 1
and Mary, who apparently felt a strong attraction
to Nazareth, to go to Bethlehem-Judah a t all? Note,
by the way, that Mt. 118-25 does not name the birth-
place of Jesus, and that Mk. and Jn. pass over the
birth of Jesns altogether, allowing us to suppose that
his childhood and youth were altogether passed at
Nazareth. T o the question why Nazareth was called
the fatherland of Jesus, no direct answer is furnished.
All that Mt. can tell us is that Joseph was afraid to go
into J u d z a because of Archelaus, and therefore ‘ turned
aside into the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt
in a city called Nazareth.‘ T o the question why Joseph
and Mary went to Bethlehem-judah, Mt. virtually
replies that the Christ had to be born there because of
the prophecy in Mic. 52[1], whilst Lk.’s answer is that
Joseph, who had previously dwelt at Nazareth, was
obliged to go up (with his wife) to Bethlehem in
Judzea, because of the census of Cyrenius. The state-
ment of Lk. is accepted by conservative scholars on the
ground that recent researches (see QUIRINIUS) have made
it probable that one of several periodical censuses took
place in Palestine as elsewhere in 8 B.C. or in 6 A. D .
But obviously the reasoning is imperfect. If the Gospels
agreed ‘v to the main circumstances of the birth of
Jesus, so that we could assume a popular tradition, then
the historical plausibility of Lk.’s setting would be an
argument in favour of the tradition. Such, however, is
not the case. The discrepancies of the evangelists
compel us to make some hypothesis, and the hypothesis
which best accounts for the phenomena is, not that
which is generally current among N T critics, and is
vigorously maintained by Keim (Yews of Nuzuru, 2 108)
1 Cp Wellh. IYGP), 255, who thinks that the form ‘Gennesaret’
arose by contamination with Kinnereth or with Narareth. He
refers to Halevy as the author of the explanation of ncsdr in
Gennesaras=Galilee,andof Nazarene as=Galil=n. According
to Buhl, however (,Pal 113, n. 229), Halevy dws not explain
Ne& as ‘Galilee, but as a city called, from its inhabitants,
‘city of carpenters ’?:l ma;.
2 G l o p . du Talm. 189.
108 3361
NAZIRITE
-viz. that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was regarded
as an indispensable sign of the Messiahship, but that,
in the earliest form of the evangelical tradition, Jesus
was said to have been born in Bethlehem-Nazareth (=
Bethlehem of Galilee). T h e Bethlehem of Zebulun (Josh.
1915). about 7 m. WNW. of Nazareth and a somewhat
less distance from Sefiriyeh, is the city meant (see BETH-
LEHEM ii. ). T h e title Bethlehem-Nazareth was mis-
understood by some of the transmitters of the tradition,
so that while some said, ‘Jesus was born at Bethlehem,’
others said, ’ Jesus was born at Nazareth.’ * Bethlehem ’
without any explanatory addition was naturally supposed
to be the southern Bethlehem, and the well-known
narratives so poetic, so full of spiritual suggestion, in
Mt.2 and Lk.21-zo (which are unsupported by the
other Gospels) have arisen in consequence. To this
theory it is no valid objection that it involves going
behind the present evangelical narratives ; that is in fact
indispensable to historical criticism,-we have to do so
continually in O T criticism, and no good reason has
been offered for invariably acquiescing in the oldest
extant forms of the evangelic traditions. W e must also
avoid exaggerating the influence (real as it doubtless was)
of O T prophecy on the traditional narratives of the life of
Jesus. It is all the more necessary to confront the
complex critical problem bravely, because, in spite of
the existence of rock-cut tombs up the hill, towards the
W., we cannot perhaps venture to assert positively that
there was a ‘ city called Nazareth ’ in Jesus‘ time.
What the meaning of Nazareth (ic., Galip) is, Fa,n hardly
be made ont. The current explanations guard, branch,
‘flower’ (Jerome, E?. xbi. ad Marcellam: ‘florem Galilzz’),
have a very insecure basis.
The historical result relative to Jesus’ birthplace here arrived
at agrees with that of Gratz (MGW3, 29 [1880], 481-484); it had
already been hinted hy Neubauer, G i o p . du Talm., 1868, p.
191.
Robinson, BR, 3 183-200: Gukrio, GaZilte, 1 (1880), 83-102 ;
Tobler, Nazareth in Paliistina (1868); PEF
6. Literature. Mem. 1 275& 328 ; EdersheimJesus the Mer-
siah, 1146 233 ; GAS, HG, 432-435.
T. K. C.
NdZIRITE, AV Nazarite (VT?,
or D*;l3a V!?, ;.e.,
‘ consecrated to God ‘; E Y ~ A M E N O C , HyrMaNoc [in
%aa- Nu.], A r l A C M O C , H r l A C M E N O C [In Am.
tions. and in JUdg. [All, NAZEIP. NAZ[E]I-
~ A I O C , also drioc [ A ~ I O N ]e e o y ’ [in
Judg.]) was the name among the Hebrews for one
who had in a peculiar sense separated or devoted
himself to Yahwb2 (in Nu. 62$, 5$, 12 # t o take
the Nazirite vow of separation or consecration’; cp
the noun nCzer [7]4], applied in the same chapter
to the consecration of the Nazirite; and cp C ONSE-
CRATE). T h e same word (nPzir) occurs in Syriac
-not as a mere loan-word;-it is applied, cg., to
maidens consecrated to the service of Belthis;s in
Hebrew the best rendering is ‘devotee.’ Our first
question, in considering the n&ir or ‘devotee,’ has
regard to the essential conditions of his state. T h e
special characteristics of a Nazirite devotee were unshorn
locks and abstinence from wine (Judg. 135, cp Moore,
ed Zoc. : I S. 1 I I Am. 211 12) ; full regulations for the
legal observance of the Nazirite vow are given in Nu. 6,
where every product of the grape vine is forbidden, and
the Nazirite is further enjoined to abstain from approach-
ing a dead body, even if it be that of his nearest relative,
T h e law in question is not pre-exilic, and is plainly
directed to the regulation of a known usage. It con-
templates the assumption of the vow for a limited
period, and gives particular details as to the atoning
ceremonies at the sanctuary by which the vow must be
recommenced if broken by accidental defilement, and
1 So Judg. 13 7 16 17 [Bl (va5;r]rpdos, AL). Nestle thinks
that this use of i y w ( i y i o v ) may illustrate rb yevvljprvov
Zytov in Lk. 135.
2 On the relation of ii~, ‘ to consecrate,’ and 111, ‘to vow,
see We Heid (21 143 : and especially RS(9, 4821:
3 S. is-. &f. (Bickell), 1212; RSR, 483.
3362
 NAZIRITE
the closing sacrifice, at which the Nazirite, on the expiry
of his vow, cuts off his hair and burns it on the altar,
thus returning to ordinary life. Among the later Jews
the Nazirite vow of course corresponded with the legal
ordinance, which was further developed by the scribes
in their usual manner (Mishna, Nrizir ; cp I Macc. 349
Acts 21 235, Jos. Ant. xix. 6 I, BJ ii. 15 I).
How far, w-e must now ask, does this ordinance agree
with pre-exilic [.L e . , post-Solomonic
- l ) usage? The two
Pie-exilic
2. passages generally appealed to are Judg.
13 and I S. 1. An objection, however,
usages* will presently be raised to the acceptance
of the second as -an authority for the early Nazirite
usage, and even as regards the first it is not impossible
that in its present form it may have received modifi-
cation. This remark applies to Judg. 1 3 4 7 14, where
the details imposing an elaborately strict regimen may
perhaps be due to an interpolator (Bohme). This at
least is certain, that the only detail of the later Nazirite
vow which is authenticated by references in the Samson-
legends is the wearing long hair. That the hero was
regarded originally as an abstainer from wine is by no
means probable, and it is evident that he did not avoid
impurity, for he is said to have touched the carcase of a
lion, and to have been often in contact with the slain.
Of Samuel too (if I S. 1 may here be quoted) we are
only told that his mother vowed to give him to Yahwe
all his days, and that no razor should come upon his
head ( I S. 1 IT ; note the addition of 6 ,' wine and
strong liquor he shall not drink'). It is not strictly
critical, however, to refer to Samuel, for he is nowhere
called a Nazirite (Sirachs description [Ecclus. 46 I ~ C ]
' a nrizir of Yahwk in prophecy,' mi31 '3 7-13, does not
count), and from Ezek. 44 zo we may probably infer that
letting the hair grow was an ancient priestly custom.a
Rightly does Wellhausen assert that according to the
true text of I S. 1 11 Samuel was neither a nrithin (6
66uw ~ O T ~ Ycp, Nu. 3 9 186) nor a nrizir.
It is plain therefore that the conditions of Naziriteship
in ancient times were much less strict than afterwards ;
plain, too, that the framers of the legal ordinance had
no comprehension of the original Nazirite vow. In the
case of Samson, who is the only known example of a
Nazirite in early times, the long hair is a mark of con-
secration to God ( o d 1~~ 1 ,Judg. 135) for a special
service to his people. The hair being a symbol and
centre of vitality (see C UTTINGS OF THE FLESH, § z ;
H AIR , 2). to leave it uncut during an arduous under-
taking in which the divine aid had heen specially im-
p l ~ r e d .and
~ to sacrifice it when success had been
obtained, were equally natural. Examples of this
primitive custom are given by Spencer, De Lep'bus Neb.
3 I , cap 6 ; but the most important parallels come from
Arabia.
There the vow was generally one of war or revenge (ffamrisa,
167' 'Antara, Mo'aL 174; Moh. in Medim, ZOI), and till it
was'accomplished the man who vowed left his hair unshorn and
unkempt, and abstained from wine, women, ointment, and per-
fume. Such is the figure of Shanfara as described in his
Lzmiya. The observances of the ibrzm belong to the same
usage (bee Ency. Brit. 15674; WRS, Rel. Sem.(2), 3,33), and
we find that at TSf it was customary to shear the hair at the
sanctuary after journey (Moh. in Medina, ed. Wellh. 381).
Cp also Schwally, KricgsaCterthti:mer,,i. (1901).
The difference which may be noticed between the
Arabic usage and the easy Naziriteship of Samson, need
not surprise us. After all, SAMSON [4.v.] is not a
historical character, but a product of the popular wit,
which vivified dim historical traditions of a long contest
with the Philistines, and refused no detail suggested by
mythic or other stories of heroic men. That Nazirites
in pre-exilic times abstained from wine, need not be
doubted. Whether the enjoyment of every ' product of
1 Post-Solomonic, because the date of the documents is much
later than that of the events professedly described in them.
2 RS(9, 483 ; Smend, A T Rel. Gesch.(z),gs3 n. z ; cp H A I R ,
'3 See Judg. 5 2, according to WRS's interpretation.
however, H A IR , 0 3.
Cp,
3363
NEAH
the vine ' was forbidden by usage, seems more uncertain ;
the account of the Rechabites in Jer. hardly justifies us
in asserting this1
T h e spirit of warlike patriotism that characterised the
old religion of Israel naturally produced Nazirites, and
we may assume that the vow of such
3. Later
developments. persons resembled Shanfara's more
closely than Samson's. There is an
unmistakable trace of this asceticism in parts of the life
of David (see 2 S. 11 11 and perhaps I S.21 4f:).
need not suppose, however, that the ancient Nazirites
We
were exclusively warriors. They were also speaking
examples of the old Israelitish ideal of life, and may
therefore have been drawn from different classes. From
the allusions in Am. 2 I I J ~ we are led to suppose that
at one time they had an importance-perhaps even an
organisation-parallel to that of the prophets, which
the true servants of Yahwb recognised as divinely sanc-
tioned, while, on the other hand, the Canaanised popular
religion of the eighth century B.C. made light of an insti-
tution that belonged to a very different religious type
from Canaanite nature - worship. T h e Nazirites de-
scribed by Amos h m e also a parallel (so far as not
drinking wine is concerned) in the R ECHABITES [q.~.].
By the sixth century B.C. the Nazirite vow has lost
its old simplicity and much of its old importance. T h e
Priestly Code knows only of a temporary Naziriteship.
and presupposes that the vow may be taken by women ;
the directions are given in full in Nu. 6 (see above, § I).
It may be noted here that in Lam. 4 7 the rendering
' her Nazirites ' (AV) is altogether opposed to the con-
text ; RV gives ' her nobles.' Whether, however, :31
ought to be interpreted thus widely, may be doubted.
It is possible to read 9717, ' her magnates' ; the trans-
position of letters is very easy, and we are spared the
necessity of slcpposing a rare meaning, ' noble,' for 7 ~ :
In Lev. 255 II it is doubtful whether iv: ought to be
rendered ' an unpruned vine.' Gray, indeed, would use
this as a proof that the secondary sense of the word
' Nazirite ' ( a person with unshorn hair) had over-
powered the primary sense of ' devotee.' But surely it
is more natural (with Gratz) to emend 1*i1 into v x x
(vintage), corresponding in ZI. 5 to 7 - q ~(harvest).
On this we shall not dwell (see Dillmann's com-
4.~=
mentary) ; we pass on at once to the N T , and notice
refer- that some commentators find the Nazirite
vow referred to in Acts 21 2 3 8 No less
a person than the apostle Paul is sup-
posed by them to have taken such a vow, but without
waiting till he had fulfilled the minimum period of
thirty days' residence in Palestine required by the school
of Shammai3 (cp ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, § 7). This,
however, is by no means certain. Cp also Lk. 1 1 5
(John the Baptist), and the traditional account of James
the Just (see J AMES , 3).
Dillmann Nidm. Deuf. Jos.: Driver, l o e l a n d Amos, ISZ,? ;
W. R. S m i 6 , R S h , 3323, 482 ; We. Heid.(l), 117 3 166 f: ;
Stade G V I 1479 ' Smend, Lehlduch der
6. Literature. altte&. Rel.&ch.b), 93-96 ;.Nowack, Arch.
2 1 3 3 3 (with reff.); Bennnger, Arch. 429
E : G$1, in Jahrb6. f: grot. Theol., 1880, pp. 6458.: G. B.
Gray, in Joum. of Theol. Studies, 1 Z O I ~ . ; Griineisen, Der
AhnencuZtus rgoo, pp. 46 71 gz 11-2s ; Schwally, Kriegsalter-
thdmer, rgo: (ingenious). W. R. S.-T. K. C .
NEAH (n???; AOZA [Bl, N O Y A [LIP A NN . [AI).
in Zebulun (Josh. 19 13f), possibly a corruption of NEIEI,
[ q . ~ . ]which
, appears in ~1.27,very near the valley of
Iphtah-el (also mentioned in o. 14), in the delimitation
of Asher.
1 It may be questioned whether the Kenite kinsmen and
allies of the primitive benC Israel can have been redly opposed
to the cultivation of the vine. The Negeb was, in parts, a rine-
producing country (see NEGKB).
2 The slight doubt expressed by G. B. Gray whether the
Nazirites in the time of Amos were compelled to abstain from
wine Feems hard1 necessary.
3 +he school oYHillel, however, declared that the residence
must be for the whole time to which the original vow referred.
3364
 NEAPOLIS NEBO
NEAPOLIS (NE& rrohic, Acts1611; WH, NE&- who are Aramaeans. True, the above Sabaea? parallels suggest a
different ex lanation : '[God is] splendour ; cp Ass. nab&+,
no),lc), the port at which Paul landed on the second 'to shine' (gel. Prol. 98). But we must perhaps not bF too
day from Troas, when he sailed thence in response to confident of the originality of the formation with el, 'God.
the vision calling him to Macedonia. Originally be- T. K. C.
longing, like all this coast, a s far as the Strymon, to NEBO (i2?),a Babylonian deity (Is.461, NABW
Thrace,l Neapolis was at this time (about 50 A . D .) in the [B Theod. Aq.1, NEBOYC [Symm.], hArwN [KAQI) ;
province of Macedonia. Its name ( ' New Town ') would Nabzi, the patron of Borsippa, is meant. T h e proximity
indicate that it was either a recent foundation or an of Borsippa to Babylon naturally led to the association
older and unimportant place awakened to new life by of Nabii with the still more popular Marduk ( MERO-
the accession of fresh colonists-perhaps from Daton, DACH ). In the later theological system Nabii became
which was in the neighbourhood (Strabo, 330, frag. 36, Marduk's son. ' Every New Year's day the son paid a
A a T q v G v r6hrs NedraoX~sK a l a1;d ~b Adr~ov), if, indeed, visit to his father, on which occasion the statue of Nabii
Daton was not the original name of Neapolis. Doubt- was carried in solemn procession from Borsippa across
less the growth of Neapolis was closely associated with the river, and along the main street of Babylon leading
the rise of Philippi, the centre of the mining district on to the temple of Marduk ; and in return the father deity
the farther side of Mt. Symbolum. Neapolis was the accompanied his son part way on the trip back to
port of Philippi, about I O m. inland ( 9 R. m., Appian, E-Zida [the name of Nabii's temple at Borsippa].'l
BC4ro6 ; cp Itineraries). It lay opposite the island of With the Mandzeans and Harranians NabC was the
Thasos (Dio Cass. 47 35, K a T ' (ivTmkpas Bduou). These deity corresponding to Hermes or Mercury; with the
indications point to the site of the modern KavaZZa, Babylonians, too, he was closely connected with the
which is situated on the bay of the same name, on a planet Mercury. One of the ideograms connects his
promontory with a harbour on either side. T h e tri- name with nabpi, ' t o call, name, proclaim.' He was
remes of Brutus and Cassius lay here at the time of the reckoned the originator of the art of writing on tablets.
battle of Philippi (44 B.C. ; Appian, Z.C.). Remains of According to Gunkel, the mention in Ezek. Q Z of a
a Roman aqueduct, etc., and many inscriptions, are supernatural being (one of six) in human form, ' with a
tound at Kavalla; but these facts do not prevent writer's inkhorn at his side,' is suggested by the descrip-
Cousinery from placing Neapolis at Eski-KavaZZa (Old tions of Nabii, who is not only the god of wisdom, but
Kavalla), a deserted harbour about IO m. to the W. the herald of the gods (hence his name Papsukal,
(Voyage duns la Macddoine, 2 119f: ). supreme, or sacred, messenger). His consort was
Ramsay points out that the writer of the narrative in named TaSmitum, with whom ASHIMA [q.v.] is by some
Acts (in his view, Luke) ' hardly ever omits to name the identified. Whether we may venture to assume that the
harbours which Paul sailed from or arrived at, even name of this Babylonian god attached itself to the
though little or nothing in the way of incident oc- Moabite and Judahite towns called Nebo, and to the
curred in them ' (St. P a d the TruvelZer, 21). Having mountain known as Nebo, and also entered into some
once mentioned Neapolis, he omits its name on the personal names such as BARNABAS (for Rarnehiis ?) and
subsequent journeys (Acts201 6 ) . Here, as in other M ACHNADEBAI , seems to the present writer doubtful.
sea-ports, Paul apparently found no opening (cp the It seems more probable that mutilation has taken place
case of Seleucia, Acts 1 3 4 ; of Attalia, Act 1425 ; of in some or all of these cases, and that NBbo comes in
Cenchrea, Acts 1818). W. J. W. the case of Mt. Neb0 from Negbu (see N EBO ii., 2 ) ,
NEABIAH (;I:?Y?, 3 37 ; but is it not like PELATIAH and in the case of the other names from Nadabu (an old
and S HEPHATIAH a distorted form of a gentilic ? Cp ethnic name ; see N ADAB ). Cp the identification of the
also NOADIAH[ C h e . ] - ~ ~ h h [ ~ ] i &P A ] , NEAPIOY, Moabite Neb0 with NADABATH.See B ABYLONIA , 5 26.
N A A p l b C [LI). T. K. C.
I. A descendant of Zerubbabel I Ch. 3 2 2 s NEBO (\2?, N A B ~ Y [BAFL]). LY ebo in P is the
2. A Simeonite captain, temp. kezekiah, T Ch. 442.
name of the mountain from which Moses surveyed the
NEBAI. RV NORAI( M T *;la), Neh. l O 1 9 [ 2 0 ] , called 1. The old promised land, and where he died (Dt.
in Ezra 1043 N EBO (q.v., iii. 2, end). 3 2 4 9 5 3 4 1 ) . It is also mentioned in the
NEBMOTH or NEBAJOTH (AV in Gen. ; ni'?;, itinerary ( N u . 3 3 4 7 ) as a place before
nig ; NaBAiwe. N A E A I O T H ) , b. Ishmael, Gen. 2513 which the Israelites encamped, in the mountains of ' the
(NAIBEOP [F,I) 363 ( ~ ~ B a i w CO1)s
p 1Ch. 1 2 9 15.607. A B A R I M '
(q,v.)-a plural noun which is commonly
A North Arablan nomad people, mentioned with K EDAR taken to mean the NW. part of the Moabite plateau
fq.v.1, just as the Nabaiti are mentioned in Assyrian with Mt. Nebo. Among the ridges by which this great
inscriptions with the Kidrai and the Aribi. See NABA- plateau descends to the Jordan valley there is one which
TEANS, and cp I SHMAEL , 1 4 (I), also Glaser, Skizze, specially draws attention by a headland, 5 m. SW. of
2 266 f.,Hommel, A H T 275 (who connects the name Heshbon, and 91 m. due E. of the NE. end of the
with Nebo, on the analogy of Ashtaroth, Anathoth). Dead Sea, to the flat top of which, crowned by a ruined
the name Nebs is a t t a ~ h e d . ~By R ( D t . 3 4 1 )
NEBALLAT (Dh2J; NABAAAAT mg. 1, NAB&- cairn,
Mt. Neb0 is identified with the ' top (or, as some think,
A&T [L], BK"A om.), a Benjamite town, named with headland) of the Pisgah,' which D,, and probably also
HADID and LOD, Neh. 1 1 3 4 . Now Beit Ne6dai. J , regarded as the mountain of Moses' death. About a
situated on a low hill, 34 m. NE. of Lydda, and nearly mile from Neb% are the ruins (Byzantine) of Siaghah,
z m. N. of Hadid. See Rob. B R 3 3 0 ; Guerin, and half a mile to the SW. the ridge ends in a project-
Sam.267 f.;P E F M 2 2 9 6 . ing spur called RBs SiHghah, the slopes of which fall
NEBAT (D?J, cp Sab. hD33 D23n!JK; N&B&T, steeply on all sides to the Jordan valley and the Dead
N A B & @ [BAL]). the ' father ' of JEKOBOAM I. Cq.v.1 Sea (Conder, Heth and Mon6, 1 3 2 5 ) ; it is usual to
( I K. 1126 12 z 15 etc. ), but properly a clan name of the identify this headland with ' the Pisgah' (see PISGAH).
type of ' Ishmael,' ' Jezreel' (see below). The view from both points is nearly the same ; but the
Neubauer (Stud. Bib. 1221) connects it with N ABOTH [ g . ~ . ] , RBs SiZghah commands a fuller view of the Jordan
the confusion of D and n being not impossible, and suggests that valley beneath. It is admitted, however, by all that the
Neba,at and Nnboth may both be connected with NEBAIOTH
fp.u.1, the N . Arabian Nabaiti (=n*3j)of Ah-bani-pal, and the 1 Jastrow Ret. o f B a l and Ass. 1-27.
3 ~ 3 )of the Nabatzan inscriptions (see NABATSAXS). We 2 'Der SLhreiberengel Nabii im A T u. im Jndenthum,'
might almost as well compare the Babylonian Nabatu of the A rchiwj: Religionmiss. 1 (3) 294-300.
inscriptions of Tiglatb-pileser III., Sargon, and Sennacherib.2 8 This identification accords with the statement of Eus. (OS
~____ 28293) that Mt. Neb0 (va@au) was 6 R. m. W. of Heshbon.
1 Pliny (HA74 18) reckons it Thracian ; but Strabo (330) and Yet, until quite recent times, it has been usual, following Seetzen,
Ptol. (3 13) connect i t with Macedonia. to identify Neb0 with the Jebel 'Attsrfis, about IO m. to the S.
1 See Schr. K A TP), 147 ; K G F 9 9 8 Against this see Tristram, Landof fsrael(1866), p. 240.
3365 3366
 NEBO
description of Moses’ survey in Dt. 3416-3 does not
entirely fit the prospect from any of the Moabite moun-
tains. Conder says-
If we make the simple change of reading ‘towards ’ instead of
‘unto’ in the cases of Dan and the ‘western sea’ .. . the
whole account reads as correctly as that of a n eye-witness ; hut
it is certain that Dan (if the site near BBniis be intended), and
the utmost, or ‘hinder,’ or most western sea, cannot be visible
from Neb0 to any mortal eye (Heth and M o d , 135).
Driver naturally enough passes over this improbable
suggestion, but thinks (Deut. 420) that ‘the terms of
Dt. are hyperbolical, and must be taken as including
points filled in by the imagination, as well as those
actually visible to the eye,’ whilst Dillmann, Wellhausen,
and others regard the whole description as a later in-
sertion which spoils the simplicity and naturalness of
the original narrative. Lastly, W. F. Birch, being dis-
satisfied with the views of English scholars known to
him, surmounts the difficulties by proposing new sites
for Dan, the ‘hinder sea,’ and Zoar, assuring us that if
we will only identify Pisgah with Tal’at el-BenSt, the
biblical description will be found to he literally true
( P E q ,1898,
, pp. I I O J ) .
Certainly the last-named writer seems to he correct
in requiring the description to be taken literally.’ It is
2. A new essential that Moses should be compensated
theory. for his exclusion from the Promised Land
by at least a sight of it in its full extent (cp
Dt. 3 27), and we are expressly told that YahwB showed
it to him, and (Dt. 3 4 7 ) that his eye had not grown dim
from age. Dillmann’s suggestion may be plausible ;
the text, as it stands, has peculiarities, and these, to
critics of the text as it stands, may seem to point to a
later editor. If, however, there are traces in Ex. and
Nu. of an underlying story of the Israelites’ pre-
Canaanitish period which differs in important respects
from that which lies before us on .the surface (see
M OSES, 5 16). we are justified in examining the text of
Dt. 341-3 rather more closely. T h e result of such a
searching criticism is that Moses, according to the
primitive story, no more drew his last breath on the
traditional Mt. Nebo than his brother Aaron did on the
traditional Mt. Hor. T h e corruptions of the text pre-
supposed in the following attempt to restore the original
(see Crit. Bib. ), which the late narrators transformed,
may all, it is believed, be justified by parallel cases of
the same kind elsewhere.
And Moses went up from -4rabia of Musri to the to of the
mountain of the Negeb of Jerahmeel [frbnting Jerafmeell.2
And Yahwi: showed him Jerahmeel as far as Dan and all Tap-
piihim [the land of Jerahmeel and Mugri], all the iand of Judah
a s far a s the Jerahmeelite sea,3 and the Negeb of Jerahmeel
[the land of Jerahmeel, the land of Mugri].
This was, in fact, the land, the fairest part of which
the spies of the Israelites (surely two, as in Josh.21)
had, according to primitive tradition, explored, and
which Moses, according to the same tradition, surveyed
before his death from a prominent mountain on the
border of the Jerahmeelite Negeh. The mountain may,
for shortness, have been sometimes called q-y,Mt.
Negbu ; its full name was the Mountain of the Negeb
of Jerahmeel.
There are three other passages which, when critically
emended, confirm the view which is here taken. These
are Nu. 21 20 23 14 28 and Dt. 3249.
( a ) Nu. 21 20. We can now supplement the articles B EER and
N AHALIEL . The stations mentioned are, most probably, ‘ Beer-
jerahmeel, Bamoth, the top of the Pisgah.’ T h e third of these,
however, has really a fuller title. As Gratz has seen, ~ * iC7the
1 H e is also partly right, as will he seen, in supposing the sea is a corruption of imj, ‘ Nadabu ’ (cp NERO.i. ) ; in!,
t o he the Dead Sea-i.e., the original story meant this, though
not the story as transformed in the traditional text.
, a The words in square brackets are to be regarded a s glosses.
For the reading $Nan13 instead of ~ J D cp D ~MEPHIBOSHETH, need not have been accidentally introduced from v. 34.
PASEAH ; for Ovnlgn instead of *$mjcp N APHTUHIM ; and for
$Nan, instead of in?. see J ERICHO , D 2.
3 The true original name of the Dead S e a ; see S ALT S EA.
For the reading *!Ken?)> ?:D for fi’lt~)?? D:?, cp lni O k Y for
$Nan,. in Ezra 2 31.
3367
NEBO
valley’) is prohahly miswritten for 112 la. Following the
parallel passage when corrected as above we should read-
‘ and from Bamdth to the slo s of the mointain of the NegeP
of Jerahmeel, which looks fortrtowards the highlands of Edom.
p w * a , like iiB,w- in Ps. 687 [E], is probably a corruption of
o b alw.
(6) Nu. 23 14. ‘And he took him to the highlands (ale) of
Zophim, to the top of the Pisgah.’ So the text stands. ‘Zophim,’
however (0’91X), should probably he ‘ Misur ’ ( ~ m )and , ‘the
Pisgah’ should he ‘Jerahmeel.’
(c) Nu. 2328. ‘And Balak took Balaam to the top of the
PEOR, that looks forth upon the desert.’ So according to MT.
But ‘ t h e Peor’ (ljYF>) has, most probably, been corrupted out
of ‘the mountain of Missur ’ (am), and ‘ the desert’ (imw’a)
should be ‘ the highlands of Edom’ (015 mv> Conder’s account
of the view from his ‘cliff of Peor ’ (Hefhand Moa6, 142) must
not tempt us to follow him. Balak was probably not a Moabite,
but a MiSrite (see ZIPPOR).
( d ) Dt.3249. ‘Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, t;
Mt. Nebo, which is in the land of Moah, which fronts Jericho.
So MT. But ‘the Abarim’ should probably he ‘the Arabians’
(O’??v); ‘Moah’ should be ‘ M i s ~ u r ;’ Jericho’ should he
‘Jerahineel.’
W e have now to ask how the geographical require-
ments of all the passages referred to can be most satis-
factorily met. The mountain, it appears, was in the
Negeb; it was NE. of Kadesh-Jerahmeel (Kadesh-
* barnea‘); it ‘looked forth’ towards Edom (cp Nu.
20 16) ; it commanded a view of the Negeb of Jerahmeel
as far as the southern Dan ( L e . , probably Halasah ;
see S HECHEM , ZIKLAG),and of Judah (the early,
diminutive land of Judah) as far east as the /era&
meeZife Sea ( L e . , the Dead Sea). Even if it be true
that the Moses clan itself did not take Zarephath
(Sebeitu?), but left this to a kindred clan, we may
still venture to place the mountain not far from Zare-
phath. Very possibly it is some part of the ‘exten-
sive mountain plateau called MagrBh, which, though
intersected by several broad wadies, runs northward,
without any break, to a point within a few miles of
WFidy es-Seba‘, where it is divided by Wsdy er-RahamH
(cp Jereme’el) from the mountains of that name’
(E. H. Palmer ; cp N EGEB). T h e e are certainly
different points in this great plateau from which impres-
sive views might be obtained both towards Edom and
towards the Negeb of Jerahmeel and Judah. Thus the
interest of the Negeb is considerably heightened by the
results of a not merely negative, but reconstructive,
criticism. See PISGAH. T. K. C.
NEBO (hl, NABAY). a hill town taken by the
Reubenites with Ileshbon, Elealeh, etc. (Nu. 3 2 3 [v. 38
A papw, F vuj3w ; BL om.], 3 3 4 7 I Ch. 58. Omitted
in the Reuben list, Josh.1315). Mesha (inscr. 2. 14)
boasts of having taken it from Israel and exterminated
its people (for Mesha’s spelling of the name [ a ~ j ] ,see text
of inscr. [MESHA]). It remained Moabite, and is men-
tioned with the above places in the lament over Moab
(Is. 152 Jer. 4 8 1 2 2 ) . Neb0 wasahill town(Is.Ac.), and
situated, perhaps, near the mountain of the same name
(but see N EBO, M O U N T ), although Eus. (0SCz),28393)
speaks of a ruined Nabau, 8 R. m. S. of Heshbon, 6
R. m. to the W. of which he locates the m0unt.l
2. A city of Judah, the ‘ sons ’ (citizens) of which are
mentioned after the ‘ men ’ of Bethel and Ai, Ezra 229
(vapou [B], -Po [A], -pau [L] ; in I Esd. 521 d om.).
I n the [I passage, Neh. 733, they are called ‘ the men of
the other Nebo’ (in! iy, vuj31a aap [B, cp Sw.].
ycp[e]ia E K ~ T O Y [KA]. vaj3au [L]). Very possibly 123
‘ the
other,‘ in Neh. 733, is, according to Crit. Bib., a mis-
understood fragment of hiam* ‘ Jerahmeel‘; if so, it
as Meyer (Entst. 149)suggests ; but cp L. The com-
mune of ‘ Neb0 ’ (Nadabu ?) is represented in the list of
1 T h e notice in OS21 2 8 3 9 rests upon a confusion of Neho
with Nohah (Nu. 32 42), which goes back to Q
3368
 NEBUCHADREZZAR
those with foreign wives (see E ZRA i., 5 end ; cp ii.,
17[6]), Ezra 1 0 4 3 (vapou [BRA]. -pav [L]), and
appears by error in Neh. 10 19 [zo] as N EBAI , RV N OBAI
(Kt. 'm ; K r . *?*a). T. K. C.
NEBUCHADREZZAR ( 7 ~ N ~ ~ Jer. > ~ 212 2~ etc.,
, Nebuchadrezzar had then arrived in person ( 2 K. 24 ;I)
and so Jos. and Strabo ~ ~ & o ~ o A p o c o pAbydenus
oc,
~~Boy~oApocopo c,
corresponding with Bab. form
[below]; incorrectly 7 ~ K ~ 7 > 1 1l$!-Dan.
~, 1I etc.
[see BDB], and so d N A B O ~ X O A O N O C O ~ [with
various scribal corruptions], - N O C O ~ O C Jos. [see
Niese, Zndez]), the Babylonian monarch NabB-kudur-
usur, son and successor of Nabopolassar on the
throne of Babylon. He was second of the name,
Nabi-kudur-uSur 1. being of the Page dynasty (about
1139-1123 B.C. ). Nabopolassar had secured the throne
of Babylon, during the years of weakness and dissension
in Assyria which followed the death of ASur-b?mi-pal,
apparently by aid of the Chaldean party in Babylon.
While the power of Media was rising to the N. of
Assyria, the astute founder of the neo-Babylonian
Empire married his son Nebuchadrezzar to Amuhia,
daughter of Cyaxares, king of Media.' Hence, when
the crisis came and the enemy closed in upon Nineveh,
Babylon was able to claim alliance with Media and at
least lent a moral support to the overthrow of Assyria.
After that event had destroyed the balance of power in
Mesopotamia. the Medes or Manda nominally held the
northern kingdom, while Babylonia retained independ-
ence. The decline of Assyrian power was always
Egypt's opportunity in Syria. Necho II., perhaps as
early as 608 B. c., had begun to advance along the
coast ; he was vainly opposed by JOSIAH[ p . ~ . ]and , by
the time that assyrian resistance (606 B. c. ?) collapsed he
was probably master of all Syria. The power of Media
may have been exhausted by the struggle to capture
Nineveh ; at any rate it was Nebuchadrezzar (Berossus-
Josephus, c. A$. 1 1 9 ) who successfully opposed the
Egyptian king at Carchemish, 605 B . C . ~ How far
Median troops assisted we do not know ; but either the
alliance of Babylonia with the detested Manda had be-
come very strong or the Manda were otherwise en-
grossed by the rising Persian power. The powers in
Assyria must have been either actively allied or singularly
helpless for Babylonian troops to operate successfully
in Syria and beyond. In all probability the remnant
of the Assyrian troops took service under Nebuchadrezzar
rather than with the Medes.
It was on this expedition that Nebuchadrezzar was brought
into contact with the kingdom of Judah. On the difficulties in
2 K. 24 18(cp 2 Ch. 36 16) see J EHOIAKIM . The inscriptions
are unfortunately silent.
Nebuchadrezzar's succession to the throne of Babylon
seems to have been accomplished without difficulty, and
he entered on his long reign of forty-three years, 604 B. c.
to 561 B.C. He had probably recalled the greater part
of his troops from the W . , leaving only garrisons and
governors in the more important cities, after the Assyrian
model. His absence in Babylon and the necessity of
watching events in Media and Elam. where Teispis the
Persian made himself independent as king of AnHan,
600 B.c., obliged Nebuchadrezzar to leave the W. alone.
Relieved of the pressure, Egypt recovered, and under
its new king Apries-Hophra began to adopt the usual
policy of inciting the West to rebellion. How far Nebu-
chadrezzar had his hands tied by the troubles in Media
is not clear ; but, either by active assistance to Persia or
by maintaining a powerful frontier guard, he was able
to preserve peace in Babylonia ; and when his warlike
neighbours had once more quieted down he was able to
reach Palestine without danger to his line of communi-
cations. A hostile power in A4ssyria. or a too active
ruler in Elam, must have paralysed an advance to Syria.
Abydenus in ILusebius Chron. 19.
1 1 Perhaps at this time Nebuchadrezzar made himself master
Jer. 46 2 2 K. 33 29. gee EGYPT, 8 68. [Some doubt, how-
2 of Susa, and restored its IStar image carried away to Erech by
ever, rests upon the battle of Carchemish. See J EREMIAH
(B OOK), 5 r4, PROPHET, 5 45.1
3369
NEBUCHADREZZAR
Affairs in Judzea had been in a very unsettled state for
some time. How J EHOIAKIM [Y.v.] rebelled, and left
a heritage of woe to his son and successor JEHOIACHIN
[p.~.],who after a three months' reign surrendered to
the Babylonians, is told elsewhere (cp I SRAEL , 141).
to direct the siege of Jerusalem. He captured the clty
in 597 B.C. This was only an event in the general plan
of reducing the W. to order ; 'I'yre and Sidon remained.
Egyptian influence was always strong there, and the
traders must constantly have carried sedition into the E.
unless Tyre was friendly. T h e traders could not be
interfered with; they were too valuable. But Tyre
would be a rich prize, and once in Babylonian hands
the source of much mischief would be suppressed.
Sidon was soon dealt with : the Assyrian kings had
made that easy ; but though Nebuchadrezzar prosecuted
the siege of Tyre for thirteen years (under Ithobaal 11..
see T YRE ), 585-572 B.c., he could not take it (see BABY-
LONIA , § 66 ; PH(ENICIA, § 20). This siege was the
outcome of a fresh outburst of activity on the part of
Egypt. Nebuchadrezzar having settled affairs in Judea
had returned to Babylon with his captives and spoil.
What kept him there so long, eight or nine years, we
do not fully know. Troubles in Elam, the death of the
king of AnSan and the division of Media between the
first Cyrus, his elder son, and Ariamna the younger son,
probably needed careful watching, if not diplomatic
interference. But when Nebuchadrezzar was again
free, he seems, according to the views of some, to have
met and defeated the army of Apries, 587 B.C., and
proceeded to a further invasion of Egypt (see EGYPT,
§ 69 ; B ABYLONIA , § 66). Like the Assyrian invasions
of Egypt, this was a punitive expedition ; and though
fairly claiming to be a conqueror of Egypt, Nebuchad-
rezzar could not govern it. Zedekiah had relied on
Egypt (Ezek. 17 1 5 ) and rebelled, only to bring on his
land an invasion that culminated in a second siege and
capture of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Zedekiah fled, but
was captured (Jer. 395), and, having witnessed the death
of his children, was blinded and carried to Babylon.
The city of Jerusalem was sacked, the temple and
palaces destroyed by fire, and the walls made a heap of
ruins. The country was placed under the Babylonian
governor Nab&-zEr-iddin.
That Egypt was not long under Mbuchadrezzar is
clear from the fact that five years later the Babylonian
governor on his way to Egypt (Jos. A n t . x. 97) carried
off more captives from Jerusalem, Jer. 5230. This
was in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar's reign.
Almost the only historical inscription of this king%
speaks of a further expedition to Egypt in the thirty
seventh year of his reign. Amasis seems to have been
able to hold the country outside the Delta. Lydia was
growing in power, and Nebuchadrezzar may have
influenced Media to attack Lydia; at any rate he
(Labynetus? Herod. 1 7 4 ) . with the king of Cilicia.
mediated between them in 585 B.C., after the battle of
the Halys (see B ABYLONIA , § 66). On the theory
that he may have at one time conducted operations
against Kedar, to account for Jer. 4928 33, see JERE;
MIAH (BOOK), 20, vii.
Unfortunately, in the fragments above noted, we
possess no proper history of Nebuchadrezzar. The
task of reconstruction is laborious, and must remain
unsatisfactory until further discovery. That his annals
found a native historian is almost certain. T h e inscrig
tions which have been preserved chiefly commemorate
his pious restoration of the temples and ruined cities of
his land. Temple restorations in Sippar, Kutha.
Erech, Larsa, Ur, and many other minor cities are
recounted at a length which bears eloquent witness to
Agur-hBni-pal(?), when Susa was under Elamite supremacy.
2 Published by Strassmaier, Nbkd. 194.
3370
 NEBUSHASBAN
his power and the vitality of the religious feelings of his
people. Babylon itself benefited above all. It became
almost a new city. New streets were laid out, the
Euphrates banked, new walls and an outer line of
defence erected, which rendered the place impregnable.
T h e new palace, the famous hanging gardens (if Nehu-
chadrezzar’s work), and above all the restored temple of
BE.1 (see B ABYLON , 5), were his pride and his great
claim to remembrance. Sir H. Rawliuson stated that
he had examined the bricks of the ruins of not less than
a hundred cities or temples near Bagdad, and scarcely
found any that did not bear the stamp of Nebuchadrezzar
son of Nabopolassar.
T h e references to Nebuchadrezzar in D ANIEL [q.u.l and the
later classical stories are not necessarily without foundation ; but
his name became the centre of much that is probably pure
romance. For example, the story of his madness receives no
support from the fact that lycanthro ia has been attested else-
where.1 His own inscriptions speaf only of a four-year-long
suspension of interest in public affairs which may not be a refer-
ence to his malady though tradition) of something of the kind
may have lent verisimilitude to the account of it in Daniel.
The text of his inscriptions will be found in h-B3 2 , pp. 10-70,
and C. J. Ball, PSBA 11124fi C . H. W.J.
NEBUSHASBAN RV Nebushazban (]$T@ii.ry), one
of the officers of the king of Babylon (Jer. 39 13 ; om.
BKAQ, NABOYCAZABAN [Theod. in Q”g.1). It appears
to be the Ass. nnbzi-.%zib-anni, z.e., ‘ Neb0 delivers
me,’ a name actually borne by the son of Necho I.,
king of Egypt, in token of his vassalage to the king of
Assyria.
NEBUZARADAN (]Y$TTl>& Bab. Nabzi-air-iddin;
NABOYZAPAAN ; but -hap in 2 K. 2 5 8 [A]; Nabu-
eardan), ‘ chief of the body-guard’ to Nebuchadrezzar ;
see 2 K.258 I T 20 Jer. 5230, and, on his special relations
to Jeremiah, Jer. 3911 402 5. The name is good Baby-
lonian, Nabci-zBr-iddin, ‘ Nabci has given a seed,’ and
OCrUrS Often. c p ISRAEL, 5 42 ; JEREMIAH, 5 2.
C . H. W. J.
NECHO (so AV in 2Ch. 3520 a z , Neco RV ; else-
where P HARAOH -N ECHOH , R V PHARAOH-NECOH, but P HARAOH.
NECHO, RV PHARAOH-NECO in Jer. 46 2 ; iJ! and [in 2 K.
23 29 33-35.] hJ,@ [and Manetho] N e x d , Vg. aechao [Herod.
Diodor. Nsxhs,’ Jos. N r ~ a u c other MSS N F X W S ; ~on the
Egyptian form and the AssyriAn N i R B , see below]).
Son of Psametik I., second king of the 26th or
Saitic dynasty (610-594).~ His royal names are,
Nern-eb-r~?‘,~‘ renewing the heart of the sun -god,’
Nk’w (phonetically something like Ne - ko - u, read
Nek6u). T h e second or personal name was taken from
his grandfather Necho (I.), known in the Assyrian
inscriptions a s Ni-ku-u, Nikft, of Sai and Mempi, the
most powerful of the Egyptian nomarchs at the time of
the Assyrian conquest (Nechao in Manetho : cp Herod.
2152). Like Psam(m)etik, it seems to be of Libyan
etymology ; almost all Egyptian monarchs of that
period descended from officers of Libyan mercenaries.’
Necho 11. was, evidently, one of the most active and
enterprising Pharaohs ; hut he had too short a reign
and lived under too unfavourable political constellations
to accomplish much. His attempt at conquering Syria
from the crumbling Assyrian empire during its last
struggles is referred to in 2 K. 23 29-24 7 = 2 Ch. 35 zo-
3 6 4 (with free additions). This expedition ‘ against the
1 See MADNESS, and cp Wi. A O F 2 214.
2 Wiedemann, Gesck. AZgyjt. 628, quotes the mutilation
Nedad; Cramer, Anecd. Par. ii. 264 23, Nechaob; Cedren.
i. 197 12, Bekk., Necheua 1 I 195 9.
3 The statement of Herodotus is confirmed by Apis-stelz.
T h e number of years is corrupted from sixteen to six in Africanns
and Eusehius, to nine in Syncellus.
@kq ‘(-M!biI
4 -
6 I t is hardly identical with a name of the earliest period
N-kzu, as Griffrth has suggested (22,34, 1896, 50).
7 Schafer, AZ, 33 [r895], 116,on very inadequate grounds,
assumed Ethiopian descent for that Saytic family.
3371
NECKLACE
king of Assyria to the river Euphrates ’ ( 2 K. 23 29) was
undertaken early in Necho’s reign (609-608) ; as is well
known, King Josiah of Judah opposed his march ; he
did this, not from pious rashness, but as a vassal of
Assyria. On the question of the locality where he
fell, see EGYPT, 5 68, and JOSIAH,5 2, and cp M Y A G
354. Three nionths after the battle of Megiddo (the
name is correct) Necho performed divers authoritative
acts as suzerain of Judah. Jehoahaz was carried in
chains from R IBLAH, and Jehoiakim had to pay a heavy
fine. See J EHOAHAZ , J EHOIAKIM . T h e allusion in
Jer. 471 to the time when ‘ Pharaoh smote Gaza‘ is to
be referred to Necho’s expedition.’ Necho’s Syrian
domination (of which a stone found in Sidon or Byblus3
is the only monument) came to an end, three or four
years later (about 605), when the king of Babylonia,
as snccessor to Assyria, reclaimed the Syrian provinces.
The army of Necho suffered a complete defeat by
NEBUCHADREZZAR. at that time the Babylonian crown-
princc. The Jews, probably, still continued to cherish
hopes of Egyptian opposition to the Babylonians, but in
vain ( 2 K.247).
On Necho’s most important public work-the digging
of the canal through Goshen to the Red Sea-see
EGYPT, 5 68. The work certainly was not abandoned,‘
otherwise Necho could not have kept a strong fleet on
the Ked Sea (Herod. 11). The inscriptions of Darius
show too that the ‘ Suez-canal ’ of this king ( Herod. 4 39,
Strabo, 804) was only a restoration of Necho’s work
which the sand of the desert had filled in, as happened
with various later attempts at connecting the Nile and
the Red Sea.5 T h e sending of an Expedition under
Phumician leaders around Africa (Herod. 4 42) confirms
the fact that Necho had great plans in Africa, of which
we know little.6
T h e great canal seems to have left the king little time
for other constructions. Some traces of building in
Memphis (where also during his lifetime an Apis-hull
was buried) have been found. Necho’s tomb in Sais
seems to have been destroyed together with his mummy
last century.’ W. M. M.
NECKLACE. A compound term like ‘ necklace’ is
not to he expected in a version of the Bible which retains
the Hebrew colouring. Still it will be convenient to
bring together under this heading the different Hebrew
words which are used for ornamental chains (see
C HAINS ) such as we commonly call necklaces, or for
neck-ornaments in general.
I. Strings of cylinders (see R ING , 5 I ) are represented
on Assyrian sculptures.8 Similar strings of precious
stones, pearls, or beads are described in Cant. 1 x 0 as
o ~ n i r (zdrzisirn
j (AV ‘ chains of gold ’ ; RV ‘ strings of
p a i s , ’ d hppfUKOC), and n*im (AV ‘rows,’ RV a plaits,’
d ~ p u y b v c s )Cant.
, 1IO. Probably the I apples of gold ’
(Toy, ‘ golden fruits ’) in Prov. 25 11 (a corrupt passage)
should give place to ‘ a string of pearls, or beads,’
n*!?ini i n ; o v i n means properly not ‘ strings,’ but
’ heads (or the like) strung together ’ (cp Kon., ii. 1136).
For ‘ beads,’ however, we may, especially in Cant. 1IO,
1 Cp Winckler, A O F 1504.
2 See GAZA. On the statement of Herodotus (2159)~see
Wiedemann, CEO, 566f:
3 Published by Griffith, PSBA 16 I. On the vague possibility
of finding the Egyptianised name
W. M. Muller in MVAG1 rgo.
09 a king of Byblus in it, see
4 On the improbability of an oracle as the reason, cp Wiede-
mann (Gesch. Ag.,627), who, however, believed in the abandon-
ment and ascribed it to political difficulties.
5 See W. M. Muller, MVAG3 152.
6 Herodotus places the digging of the canal before the Syrian
exDedition. The opposite is more probable.
5 Wiedemann 1 ;.-
8 As an i n s t d c e of the sacredness of such ornament may he
cited the verse in the Babylonian Deluge-story where the
goddess IStar swears by the necklace (lit. ‘jewel of my neck’)
which her father had given her Uastrow, Ret. ofBab. and Ass.
503 cp Jensen in KB6 I, 2 4 ~ ZZ. 1645).
Y’For a discussion, see BASKETS, n. I ; Che. 3BL 18 ZOEA
[18991.
3372
 NECODAN
substitute ’ silver ornaments ’ ; others (e&, Renan, i
Siegfr.) prefer ‘strings of coral,’ or (Now./ coral and
metal.
2. Neck-ornaments also took the form of crescents’
(so RV o q i n ~ ) .Is. 3 1 8 , ~Judg. 826f (AV ‘round tires
[mg., ornaments] like the moon’; Aq. pL1)wIuI(oi,but
6”ulwvwv and bL thou. in Judg. ; Sym. K O U ~ I WinW
Judg., pUW1dKaL in Is. ; Vg. ZunuZe; Aram. and Syr. in^
--i.e., ‘moon.’ like in Talm.). These were, per-
haps, amulets ; crescent-shaped charms are still a
favourite Oriental protection against the evil eye. The
crescents were worn both by women (Is., Z.C.; cp 3)
and by Midianite men (Judg. 826 ?) ; also by camels ( 3 .
ZI?). In fact, riding animals are still often decorated
with pendent metal plates.
Hudde, however, well remarks that the words, ‘ Gideon arose,
and slew Zehah and Zalmunna, and took the crescents that were
on their camels’ necks,’ read very strangely. His remedy is to
suppose that the last clause is an addition suggested by 7,. 266.
in its original form (Bu. there omits all hut ‘beside thecrescents
that were about their camels’ necks’). But how came this
particular term ~ y 7 7 0(appropriated to an ornament of the
ladies of Jerusalem) to he used here? The more natural term
would have been nrpjy, which in fact the later editor of v. 26
adopts. T h e only course left is to emend the text. T h e
original text of v. 21 must have had lr$y niiy??-n? np!
O;i’Vl!?, ‘and he took the bracelets which were upon their arms’
(see. Crit. Bi6.). Gideon, in fact, took these royal insi’iu
for himself as king. See GIDEON.
3. m
,,; ‘anZ4, Cant. 49 (Odp), Prov. 1 9 (KXoi6s
~ p d u e o s ) , Judg. 8 2 6 t (mppl&pua [B], K X . xp. [AL]),
perhaps a neck-ornament, not always a necklace (plural
In Cant. 49 p3y is certainly a ditto-
T-:
graphed 7 ~ y . EV’s rendering, a with one chain of thy
neck’ is unjustifiable. Read, ‘ Thou hast terrified me,
my sister, with thine eyes (cp 6 5 ) ; thou hast terrified
me, thou hast struck me with blindness ’ (o*vuaa). See
Cn‘t. Bi6.
, 35 22 Nu.31 5 4 t perhaps a
4 . 7??3, kzimriz ( I ~ T A ~ K c o u )Ex.
necklace constructed of little golden discs; so R V w . (see
ARMLET).
5. h,&?Zf Cant. 7 2 ( D 9 N h ; ; I p p h o s ) , Prov. 25 12 (on Q see
n.),3 Hos. 2 15 [131 il:b (Kaedppra), perhaps a neck-ornament.
See the Lexicons.
6. l’?!, ribid, Gen. 41 42 ( K A o c;~Aq. ~ Sym. pavra’qs), Ezek.
16 11 (K&pa), and, by emendation, 2 Ch. 3 164 (Bertheau, Ki.).
C p the golden collar bestowed by the sovereign a s a reward,
like our orders : see 7 I and cp I E d . 36, and JOSEPH, $ 5 , c.
7. X3J’Dil (Kr. N????, hamnikri, pavtbqr), Dan. 5 7 16 29t.
A Persian loan-word in Jewish Aramaic and in Syriac. Polybius
(2 31) already recognised that the word was not Greek.5 A chain
of honour (cp 6).
1. A.-T. K. C.
NECODAN ( N ~ K W A A N [BA]), I Esd. 537=Ezra260
N EKODA , 2.
NECROMANCER (B3n?&$ ~7 ; Dt. 1811f).
See DIVINATION, § 3.
NEDABIAH (Vqt;l. 27, ‘YahwB has given or
apportioned,’ or an expansion of ’7’3, ‘ a Nadabite’
[Che.]; cp N ADAB ), son of king Jeconiah; I Ch.318
(AeNe8al P I . NABAAIAC [Aa], NAAA Bia [L]). For
another Nedabiah see A NANIAS , 9.
NEEDLE, NEEDLEWORK. See EMBROIDERY.
NEEMIAS (Ecclus. 4913), RV NEHEMIAH.
1 If we read (with Gra.) nipyj for nqgj (Cant. 1II), v. 11 will
repeat o. IO, and will explain that the p i i n were of gold, the
o,mn of silver.--I. A.
2 In Is. 3 18 we also meet with ornaments called ‘little suns’
{O‘D’3w=n’~’nm, see Kdnig, ii. 1144; hut @ ;prhdKia E V
cauls,’ EVmg. ‘networks ; so Ges.-Bu.). These, however, can
hardly have been necklets.
3 IY bppiuao uapSiow in v. 11 is probably the original render-
ing of on3 ? s n (.ini),
~ for which KaL ua’p8~ovrroAvrehdr now
appears. Compare G OLD (on on>).
4 The lower border of the capital of a pillar is meant.
5 xpwuoBv $<AALOY 8 c#mpoBu~m p L rhs xe2pas K a i rbv ~pdxqhov
oi I’ahdrar. Cp Krauss, Griech. Y . Lafcin. LehnwcYYfer in
T a l t . , etc., 15.
3373
NEGEB
NEGEB (>a?? and X
J [Gen. 133
I S. 3011 ; EV
The South, but rather a’technical geographical term
meaning ‘the dry land,’ see G EOGRAPHY, 5 2 ; H
EPHMOC, Gen. 129 1313 Nu. 1317 22 [IS 231 Dt. 343
Josh. 1 2 8 [L] ; Aiy, Gen. 1314 201 2462 etc. ; NArsB,
Josh. 1040 ( N A B A ~ , B) Jer. 32 1391 4 33 [40] 13. ‘ Land
of the Negeb,’ Gen. 201 2462 [AV ‘south-country’],
Josh. 15 19 [AV south-land ’1 ; RV in all three passages,
‘ the land of the south ’). Perhaps intended by the
phrase ‘ the land of Ngb ’ in Egyptian historical inscrip-
tions (WMM As. u. E w . 148).
Great misapprehension is inevitably caused by the
1. Meaning above renderings of the AV and RV. This
has been well shown by Wilton and E. H.
Of
Palmer, but maybe pointed out once more.
Can it be really true that the ‘spies’ sent, as we are told, from
Kadesh, went up ‘ b y the south’ in order to get to Hebronl The
reader of the E V of Nu. 13 22 (cp 7 7 ) will think so until he learns
the geographical fact that Hebron lay to the N. of Kadesb. H e
will also find the pointless phrase ‘the south’ (or in RV ‘ t h e
South ’) made parallel to the hill-country and the lowland in the
geographical descriptions in Dt. 1 7 and Josh. lOqoJ, and will
again and again miss the true geographical colouring which a
well-defined geographical term would have given.
Even if a doubt be permissible about the term
ShPphelah ( R V ’ lowland ‘) for the ‘ sloping moorland ’
of Judah towards the Philistine Plain, there can be none
as to the propriety of introducing the term NCgeb (as
Bennett has done in his Joshua). which is even more
indispensable than the universally recognised technical
term synagogue.
What, then, is the Negeb? It is the southernmost
of the natural divisions of Palestine-the steppe region
which forms the transition to the true desert ; and appar-
ently it derives its name from its deficiency of water, the
only abundant springs being in a few of the larger wHdies.
There is, however, a considerable amount of moisture
which has infiltrated into the soil in these larger wHdies,
so that here at least the camels can always find pasturage.
W e know, moreover, that though now so deficient in
verdure from the want of irrigation, the Negeb was, as
lately as in the Byzantine age, much better off. W e are
also assured that between this district and the edge of
the Tih plateau there is a more barren region which
must anciently have borne to the then fertile region
of the Negeb a relation similar to that which is at
present borne to Palestine hy the Negeb in its barren-
ness. It is plain that except where the word ‘ Negeb ’ is
used laxly for the south (see EARTH [F OUR QUARTERS].
5 I), there is no ocher course open to us but to adopt the
technical term ’ the Negeb.’
In the following survey we are concerned almost
entirely with the Negeb of pre-exilic times. T h e early
post-exilic community did not occupy the
2. The
Negebs. Negeb any more than the Philistian Plain
(cp Zech.77 [a
4 6pstu?j], and the pro-
phetic prospect in Ob. 2 0 ) . W e have first to consider
the several names, of somewhat uncertain reference,
given to different parts of the Negeb. In I S. 2710 we
read of the Negeb (@ ~ 6 7 0 s )of Judah, that of the Jerah-
meelite, and that of the Kenite ; in I S. 30 14 of the
Negeb (a ~670s)of the ‘ Cherethite’ and that of Caleb.‘
In Nu. 1329, however, the land of the Negeb (6~ 6 ~ 0 s )
is said without qualification to belong to the ‘Amalekite.’
This statement is perplexing. T h e truth appears to be
that p\yy, ’ Amalek,’ is really a miswritten form of
hnn-v, J ERAHMEEL .’ From the probable evidence of
names we learn that the Jerahmeelites at one time spread
at least as far N. as the WHdy Rabameh (cp H O R M A H ), in
which name both Wilton2 and E. H. Palmer have found
an echo of the name Jerahmeel, and to Kadesh-’ barnea’
(Kadesh-Jeuuhmecl)-i.e., ‘Ain Kadis, and the Judahite
1 As H. P. Smith acutely points out, David did not raid the
three Negehs spoken of on the same occasion. When Achish
asked where David had been raiding, he answered, ‘Against the
Negeb of Judah. of against that of the Jerahmeelite or against
that of the Kenite. a The Neged, 19.
3 The Desert of t h Exodus, 426.
3374
 NEGEB
Carmel (for this name too is perhaps a corruption of
Jerahmeel). The Jerahmeelites of Kadesh, however,
appear to have been dispossessed at an early date by
the men of Judah, on whom, as Judg. 3 13 tells us, they
subsequently took their revenge (cp J ERICHO , $ 2 ) . Re-
venge indeed was a fundamental element of primitive
life in these regions. Like David himself (who pos-
sibly came from ‘ Debir ’ on the border of the Negeb’)
we find the ‘ Amalekites ’ making raids upon the neigh-
bouring country. The narrative in I s. 3014 ( M T ) men-
tions as suffering from such a raid the ‘ Negeb of the
Cherethite ’ and the ‘ Negeb of Caleb’ (otherwise called,
in v. 16, the land of the PeliStim [?] ’ and the ’ land of
Judah’ respectively). Thus we have five different
Negebs, or districts of the Negeb, mentioned. It is
our next duty to define, so far as the historical notices
permit, the geographical content of these several phrases.
The kinship between the populations no doubt places
some difficulty in our way.
(a)T h e country of the Amalekites (Jerahmeelites)
whom Saul is said to have overcome was between the
Wgdy of Beersheba and the W l d y of Mi:rim--i.e., the
WSdy el-‘AriS (see EGYPT, R IVER OF)-nOt including,
however, the Negeb of the ‘ Cherethite.’ It is con-
sistent with this that in I ch. 439f: (see JERAHMEHL,
5 4)the Jerahmeelites are said to have dwelt in Gerar
(the W l d y Jeriir). Their centre may be presumed to
have been the sacred well commonly hut incorrectly
called BEER-LAHAI-RO13 (9.”. , and cp ISAAC, JEHOVAH-
JIREH). which may have been ‘Ain Muweileh.4 At one
time, however, they must have spread farther N. (see
above), and in the time of David we find ‘ cities of the
Jerahnieelite ’ in the occupation of Judahites ( I S. 8029).
Doubtless they had various sacred meeting-places, such
as the ‘Ain Rahameh and especially the ‘Ain Kadis (both
visited by Rowlands). ‘Ain Kadis is the En-mishpat
(Gem 1 4 7 ) at KADESH-BARNEA (Jerahmeel), unless
indeed En-mishpat is an early corruption of En Sare-
phath ; at any rate Kadis is the famous Kadesh.
( b ) The Kenites. whose Negeb is spoken of, came
originally from Midian (Ex. 2 1 5 J MT), or rather per-
haps MoSri (see K ENITES ); they were allied to the
Edomite tribe of the Kenizzites. Indeed, in I S.2710
3029 @BL actually reads ‘ Kenizzite ’ where M T and @A
have ‘Kenite.’ We may assume the ‘Negeb of the
Kenite (or Kenizzite) ’ to have lain to the S. of the Negeb
of Caleb (see d ) . This view accords with the statement
in Judg. 1 1 6 that the Kenites joined the Jndahites in a
migration to ‘the wilderness of Arad in the Negeb of
Jerahmeel ’ (critically emended text ; see Cnt. Bi6.. and
cp K ENITES ). As the result we learn that the cities of
the Jerahmeelite Negeb fell into the hands of the Israelites
(Nu. 213a), more especially H ORMAH ( 9 . v . ) . or rather
Rahamah, a name which seems to have suggested the
thought of the mercifulness ( o m ) of Yahw& to Israel.
Here, therefore, the Kenites, or Kenizzites, being friendly
to Israel, could safely dwell, and hence in I S. 3029 the
‘ cities of the Kenites ’ are mentioned between the ‘ cities
of the Jerahmeelites’ and the city miscalled in M T
Hormah, but marked out by its true name a s of Jerah-
meelite origin.
1 See $3.
2 This appears from the emended text of I S. 15 7 (see TRLEM).
3 The geographical definitions in Gen. 16 7 14 point away from
the En-mishpat-sephithim ? a t Kadesh-‘ parnea.’ ‘Beer-lahai-roi ’
has to be ‘between Kadesh and Bered ‘ Bered probably comes
from Midbar Shur’-ie. the desert of’Shur (but cp Niebuhr,
GescA. 1259). The site tdere is plainly marked.
4 ‘About I O hrs.’ beyond Rohdbeh (Rnhaibeh), on our road (i.e.
ID hrs. camel’s pace), is a place called Moilahi (or MoilBhhi),
grand resting-place of the caravans there being water here a s
the name implies (?). . . . Shall I ndt, please you when I tell ;on
that we found here Bir Lahai-roi? Rowlands in Williams,
HoZy City, 1465. A writer in PEFQu., 1884,p: 177 offers an
impossible etymological theory for this Moilahhi. Rowlands
further states that the Arabs from near Gaza called the well
Moilahhi Kadesah, but that those of the country called it
MoilBhhi Hadjar (Hagar). I t is not often that local traditions
are so well founded! Here, too, is the ‘site of a large and
populous city’ (Palmer, 356).
3375
NEGEB
One of the ‘cities’ referred to-it is only a short distance on
the way from Tell ‘Arad to the WBdy Kahameh-has still a
record of its existence in the suggestive namhTell Milh ( l a n d r
interchange), with which it is fair to identify the ‘Ir b&melah
(‘Ir Jerahmeel) mentioned in Josh. 1562 (see SALT, CITVOF].
Strictly, indeed, the Negeb of the Kenites was also the Negeb
of the Jerahmeelites ; see again Judg. 116 (where oy, ‘ people,’
should be >$Dy,‘ Amalek’=‘Jerahmeel’). The Kenites appear
also to hade occupied Eeersheba.1
( e ) T h e ‘ Negeb of the Cherethite ’ is usually explained
a s = ’ Negeb of the Philistine,’ and this is plausibly
supported by the apparent equivalence of ‘ Cherethites ’
and ’ Philistines ‘ in I S.30 14 16. It is no doubt hard
to understand how the Philistines came to be found in
the Negeb ; but Matthew Poole’s Synopris has an answer
ready-‘ the place pertained to the satrapy of Gaza (!).’
T h e truth is. however, that just as n*iJ (Cherith) has been
regarded (see C HERITH ) as a corruption of n l n i (REHO-
BOTH), so vni3 (Cherethite) may be a corruption of
x i n i (Rehobothite). The centre of the Negeb of the
Rehobothites w a s no doubt the W l d y er-Ruhaibeh2 (see
R EHOBOTH). But this section of the Negeb also in-
cluded Z IKLAC ( I S.3014)or rather Hahisah on the site
still known as el-HalaSa, west of the W5dy er-Ruhaibeh,
in a wldy the upper part of which is called ‘Asliij and
the lower Halaga, and the not less historic Zephath or
ZAREPHATH [q.v.]--i.e., Sebaita or Esbaita, S. of el-
Halasa, in the WSdy el-Abyad. From Zephath it re-
ceived the second title o*mi~ p,’ land of the Zarepha-
thites,’ though in the text of I S . 30 16, by transposition
and corruption of letters, o m i s has become o,nok,
PBliStim--i.e., ‘ Philistines.’
( d ) T h e a Negeb of Caleb ’ was of course S . of Hebron.
and included the sites of Tell Zif, Ma‘in, and Kmmul ;
Nabal, who is connected with Maon and Carmel, was
a Calebite ( I S . 253), and the name el-KulPb is still
attached to a wldy I O m. SW. of Hebron. Other names
may be added to the list from I S.3027-31,for David‘s
‘ friends,’ the ‘ elders of Judah,’ were of course his tribal
kinsmen; David‘s connectioii with the Calebites is so
close that, in spite of tradition, we cannot help regarding
him as a Calebite (see D AVID , I , n. 2).
( e ) T h e Negeb of Judah was probably identical with
that of Caleb ; the hills around Zif, Ma‘in, and Kurmul
are in fact the outposts of the hills of Judah. I n I S.
3016 the phrase ‘ the land of Judah ’ is an alternative for
’ the Negeb of Caleb ’ in v. 14. ‘just as ‘ the land of the
Zarephathite ’ [see c] in the same clause is equivalent to
‘ the Negeb of the Rehobothite’ in v. 14. In 2 S.247.
however, the Negeb of Judah’ must be understood in
3 large sense for the Negeb belonging politically to
ludah, which, for the writer, extends to Beersheba. It
should be remembered that David‘s bodyguard was (in
mr view) composed of Rehobothites and Zarephathites
‘in M T ‘ Cherethites and Pelethites ’). See R EHOBOTH.
PELETHITES. This implies that the Negeb from which
David‘s warriors came was thoroughly absorbed into
ludah. The list of places in the Negeb of Judah in
losh. 1521-32 ( P ) may require a similar explanation.
This need not prevent us from admitting that a larger
section of the Negeb belonged, in post-Solomonic times,
not to Judah but to Israel (see P ROPHET , $ 6). T h e
sanctuaries of the Negeb were largely resorted to by the
N. Israelites, and Jeroboam 11. seems to have recovered
1 See I Ch. 4 1 r 5 , where TEHINNAH ( y . ~ . )is probably a cor-
.uption of Kinah (Kenite ?) and IR-NAHASH.(q.w.) of ‘Beer-sheba.’
r h e alliance of the Kenites with Caleb (Chelub) is also attested.
ESHTON ( y . ~ . )comes probably from ‘ Eshtemoh.’
2 Wilton (The N q e h , 21) deserves credit for connecting the
3herethite Negeb with the Wiidy er-Ruhaibeh, though h e had
iothing but geographical probability to guide him.
3 Targ. Jer.’s equivalent for Bered, but rather the true form
br ‘Ziklag,’ the current identification of which (see ZIKLAG)
,bows anew how greatly geography has suffered from a n un-
:ritical view of the Hebrew text. Rowlands writes thus,
Kkalasa (ancient Chesil I think) must have been a large city
-the remains are very extensive-heaps of stones and portions
if houses, etc.’ (Williams, 464).
4 ‘Asliij is connected by Rowlands (Williams, 465) with the
lame Ziklag.
3376
I
'N E G E B.
C

3'

IT. H A L A K ??
IT. H O R ??

a )

Walkere Cockerel158
ENCYCLOPAEOIA alBLlCA 1902.
 NEGEB
the Negeb for Israel ( z K. 1428 ; for a n emended text,
see PROPHET, 5 7 ) . ’
It is generally held that the SW. limit of the Negeb
was a point S. of the present ed-Qahariyeh. a large
village between es-Sema‘ on the E. and
3* Boundaries ‘Anab on the W . , which is probably to
Of the Negeb*be identified with Debir, or rather (in
our view) Beth-zur (one of several places bearing the
name ; see K IR J ATH - SEPHEK ). This is a reasonable
view, but niust not be either supported or illustrated by
the passage (Judg. 115) rendered in RV ‘ for that thou
hast set me in the land of the south, give m e also springs
of water,’ because this passage is corrupt. T h e Debir
or perhaps Beth-zur there referred to is not the ‘ Kirjath-
sannah, that is, Debir‘ mentioned in Josh. 1649. but the
wrell-known BETH-ZIJR(4.v.)near Halhiil, N. of Hebron,
and the ‘springs of water’.which have played such a
large part in the question as t o the identification of the
Debir of Josh. 1649 are non-existent in a sound text.
T h e only right basis of the perfectly legitimate assertion
that ed-QHhariyeh is ‘ the frontier town between the hill-
country and the Negeb,’ is the observation of a physical
fact. It is characteristic of the Negeb that the vegeta-
tion, meagre at the best, becomes almost completely
dried up in the heats of summer, and that the deteriora-
tion of verdure begins to be visible S. of ed-Dzhariyeh.
As Conder says, ’ the district of Debir is [at the present
day] just the limit of the settled population and of culti-
vation.’ It was probably either here or a t Carmel that
Jesse lived and David passed his early youth ; here,
too, that Saul mustered his forces to go to war with
‘ Amalek’ (I S. 1 5 4 ; see KIKJATH-SEPHER, T ELAIM).
The Israelites themselves, however, did not place the N.
boundary at ed-Dzhariyeh (= MT’s Debir) but at En-rimmon
otherwise designated Rimmon (‘from Geba to Rimmon,’ Zech:
14 IO) and prohalily called also Baalath-beer-rimmon, which is
to be identified with Unwz cr-Runrwziminc, about 9 m. N. of
Beersheba, on a geographicallyimportant site (as Solomon who
appears to have fortified it, recognised) near the boundar; line
which separates t h e Terahin and Tiyzhah territories on the S.
from the Henady Arabs and the hill-country on the N.4
On the reading BAALATH-BEER-RIMMON, probably to be re-
stored in Josh. 198 and in I K. 9 18, see RAMATH O F THE SOUTH.
This is, we think, the full name of the place otherwise called
EN-RIMMOP: and (perhaps) AZMON.~ ‘Rimmon’ may he a
popular corruption of ‘ Jerahmeel.’
On the S. and SW. the boundary line of the Negeb
went by ’ Kadesh - barnea ’ (Kadesh - Jerahmeel) a n d
‘ Hazar-addar ’ (Hazar-Jerahmeel) -i.e., ‘Ain Kadis and
(probably) ‘ A n hluweilel! respectively. The authority
from which we obtain this information adds that the
southern boundary line of the land of Israel passed on
to ‘Azmon-it. (as we have just seen), Hazar-rimmon,
which is G’mm er-Rnmmdminz-and went round to the
torrent course of Misrirn, which is the well-known WHdy
eL‘Ari3. There is also a passage-of very late date, it
is true, and often greatly misunderstood-in which the
southern limit of the Negeb is fixed at a more northerly
point than Kadesh-viz., at Zarephath or Sebaita (Ob. 20,
critically emended text), which appears to have been
regarded sometimes as the most northerly city of Mugri 7
1 So GAS HG 279
2 PEFQ, 1875, p: 51,.
a Beth-rur, iii our view, the true name of ‘Debir,’ was per-
haps also called Beth-el (193,+, and i v , ‘SI, being synonyms
for ‘ God ’), and ‘ Ihh-el’ mistaken for ‘ Beth-lehem.’ It is,
however, simpler to suppose that ‘ Bethlehem’ in I S. 1712.15
aswrllasin Rlic. 52ji](sreMi~hH[Boo~I, $4[el)isacorruption
of ‘ Heth-jerahmeel. Some place in the Negeh, perhaps Carmel
( = Jerahmeel), may be meant.
4 Wilton, 20.
5 @ apparently had aacApwva, (so FL in Nu. 344,f) where
the final a may he disregarded. A represents 1; the second 1
dropped out.
6 Nu. 34 4,f ; cp Josh. 15 31: In spite of Wetzstein’s geo-
graphical learning, his explanation of the southern boundary-line
of Judah (Del. Geu.N, 586 8 )is very improbable. Without
textual criticism n o progress could be made. Cp KARKAA.
7 On the traditional error respecting this place-name See
OBADIAH, ZAREPHATH. Note, too, in this connection that
111’3, ‘ Zidon,’in I K. 17 gshould probablyrather he VX?, Rfissur
--i.e., Mugi in N. Arabia (see MIZKAIH).Zarcphath was
3377
NEGEB
(in N. Arabia; see MIZKAIM). sometimes as the most
southerly city of the Negeb of Palestine.
This way of regarding Zarephath agrees with the specification
in Josh. 11 17 of the southern boundary of t h e land conquered by
Joshy as ‘the hare mountain ( L V , the hlt. Halak) that goes up
to Seir,’which 1rumbull identifies with thc ‘ bare and bald rani-
part of rock’ which forms the northern wall of the Wady el-
Fikreh (Kudesh-Bumeu, 1895).
Summing up, we may say that the Negeb is an irregu-
larly shaped tract extending from the hill-country of
Judah on the N. to the wilderness of Zin’ (ie., the
‘Azazimeh mountains) on the S . , and from near the
Dead Sea and the southern Ghor on the E. to the
Mediterranean on the W . , and that in the character of
its soil it forms a transition from the rich fertility of
Canaan to the wasteness of the desert.
W e niust, however, bear in mind the limitations
stated in Nu. 3 4 a., f. (see 6” sl.
I -,. and we must allow room
4. Goshen o~ ( ( I ) for the tract of land in SW. Palestine,
between the Negeb and the Shsphelah,
Geshur? called ‘ t h e land of Goshen ’ flosh. 1 0 ~ 1
I, ~~.
1116), and ( b ) for a district between the Negeb proper
and the edge of the Tih plateau which was less favoured
by nature than the Negeb. As to (a),to supple-
ment what is said elsewhere (see GOSHEN,2). it may be
suggested here, not as a n assured result, but as a prob-
ability, that p i (Goshen)is miswrittefi for i v j (Geshur?).
In I S . 2 i s we find ‘the Geshurites arid the Girzites’(where
one of the two names is obviously a doublet) mentioned beside
the Amalekites-ie., the Jerahmeelitei-and in Josh. 13 2 the
Geshurites beside the Philistines. It is difficult io find room
both for Goshen and for the Geshurites or Girzites (Girshiies?),
and it is a simple expedient t o identify them. The namg
‘Girshites’ probably a better form than either ‘Geshurites
or ‘ tioshen.
As to (6), we may safely assume that this district
-
belonrred. as Kadesh and Zarenhath mav once have
5. The Negeb belonged, to the kingdom of Mubri in N.
Arabia. and the still existing traces of
of the careful aericulture of its ancient in-
‘,
habitants seem to show that it was not a n unvalued
possession. The WHdy MHyin and the WBdy Lus+Zn
(cp the name of the Roman station of Lysa in the
Peutinger Table) were apparently the most thriving
parts of this district, owing to the excellent wells in the
former WZdy and the admirably constructed dams in
the latter. The Wady LussZn, it should be noted, is a
little to the S. of the WBdy Jerar, the Gerar of Gen.
201 261, where Isaac had such large flocks and herds.
W e must not speak too positively, however, of the times
of the Israelites ; but it is at least reasonable to suppose
that this district was not worse off for vegetation then
than the Negeb is a t the present day.2
I t is a t any rate plain that in David’s time the
Negeb was i n its way a comparatively rich country (see
of the notices in I S. 159 2 7 9 3 0 1 6 ) . and
6.
the Negeb. for the Greek period we may perhaps
claim the witness of the Chronicler ( 2 Ch.
14 14f: ). These passages agree in speaking of the a b u n -
dance of sheep, oxen, asses, and camels-the wealth of a
pastoral people. N o doubt the palmiest days of the
Negeb were in the Byzantine period. W e have not the
means of contrasting the Byzantine cities with those of
the pre-Roman age, though where the dwellings consist
of rock-bewn caves, these are doubtless older than the
masonry of the buildings. The nnwaimis, or beehive
huts of stone, u-ith which every hill-side is covered (cp
K IBROTH - HATTAAVAH , ‘ T E N T ) are assigned by Palnier
to pre-historic proples ; the duwdrs or stone-enclosures
he compares with the niiitn or ’ nomad villages ’ of early
Israelite times. which are distinguished in Josh. 198
from p l y or ’ cities. ’ 4
prohably the first town in the Negeh entered by a traveller from
‘ Beersheha which brlongs to Judah ’ ( I K. 19 ;), which was
reckoned to t h e land of Murri.
1 On the iiir of the term; ‘ wilderness of Zin,’ ‘ wilderness of
Paran,’ see Ziv, PARAX.
2 Palmer, idid. 345 347. 3 ma. 392.
4 Ibid. 3 1 6 8 321 ; cp Trumhull, h-adesh-harnea, d o f i
3378
 NEGEB
The same explorer gives us a vivid picture of the
vanished prosperity of the Negeb (see Desert of the
Exodus, pt. ii., chap. 5). His descriptions of the
ruins of cities and of the remains of terraces, etc.,
justify us in inferring that the later condition of this
region was far from contemptiblc. There are, indeed, no
grand remains a t Kadesh ( ' A i n Kadis), and Beer-sheba
is absolutely destitute of ruins ; but Rehoboth (Ruhaideh),
Zarephath or Zephath (5ebnita), and Ziklag (gala:u)
are still represented by the remains of fine cities of a
post-biblical age. Of Solomon's ' Tamar,' or perhaps
(see 3) Baalath-beer-Rimmon we have nothing but
the probable site to point to ; the latter name may
suggest that even in the relatively unfertile Negeb
pomegranates ( r i m n ~ n )may. have flourished, unless
indeed Iiimmon is a popular corruption of Jerahmecl.
That many of the strongly-embanked terraces at el-
'Aujeh and elsewhere were once planted with fruit-trees,
there can be no doubt.
Such a name as'Anab-i.e., 'grape-cluster '-is also thoroughly
justified. The towers so frequent in the Negeb are evidently
vineyard-towers (Is. 5 2), and Arabic phraseology still gives the
name Tuleilat el-'anab ' grape-mounds,' to the small stone-
heaps covering the hill-:ides and valleys for miles, along which,
anciently, vines were trained.
The fact just mentioned throws considerable doubt
on the common theory (see E SHCOL) that the Eshcol of
,. Eshcol. Nu. 1323f. was a t Hebron. The original
tradition surely did not mean that Caleb
brought the huge cluster of grapes, the pomegranates,
and the figs all the way from Hebron. It was,
probably, a journey of exploration in the Negeb that
was originally meant, and the spies brought the fruit
from the orchards and vineyards nearest to the cmip.
' If Eshcol be at Hrbron, we must either suppose that they
brought the grapes through a grape-hearing country, or that
they brought them to a Kadesh N . of Ain Gadis [ ' A h Kadis]
and situate at the present border of Palestine' (Palmer, op. cif.
353). The latter hypothesis is clearly unsuitable, as Palmer
well points out. It is also not improhable that 'Nahum the
Elkoshite' was really 'Nahum the Eshcolite,' the Negeb being
a veritable nursery of prophets (see PROPHET, $a 6&).
Fully to understand the tradition of the ' spies' we
must distinguish between its present and its original
form. As it now stands, it seems to represent Eshcol
as near Hebron. I t is shown elsewhere (M AMRE .
R EHOBOTH ), however, that Eshcol' may be a distor-
tion of ' H a l q a h , ' and ' Hebron ' in the original story
relative to ' Eshcol' and the spies a corruption of
' Rehoboth.'
The narrative in Nu. 13 21-26 is composite, and nu. 21 25 26a
are assigned to P who apparentlyfound ' Rehoh ' not ' Hebron,'
in his authority, knd misunderstood it as meaiing a northern
Rehob (see REHOB)so that he had to allow 'forty days'
(=a long hut indeterkinate period) for the search of the spies.
Rehoboth and Halasah naturally g o together and coming from
the'desert the spies might quite naturally he'supposed to have
called this region ' a land flowing with milk and honey.' [Wi.
(Gesch. 2 40,L), however, maintains that the primitive tradition
mentioned not Hebron but Kirjath-arba, which (cp MAMRE),
like Rehoh in v. 21, he places in the N., at or near Dan.]
W e have done our best to explain the geography of
the Negeb, mainly from a historical point of view.
The task has been very difficult owing to the corruption
from which (we believe) the place-names have so fre-
quently suffered. The reader will bear in mind that
one object of the present work is to contribute in some
degree to the rectification of the details of biblical
geography. Nowhere perhaps is so much rectification
needed as in the case of the geography of the Negeb.
The current identifications (e.g., those of Ziklag.
Brook Besor, Telaim, Bealoth, Hazazon-Tamar, Tamar,
Raniath of the South, Hormah. Azmon, Karkaa, Mad-
mannah, En-gedi [in Samuel], Ir-ham-melah) cannot be
accepted. They are based on what we believe to be
textual errors. Not only the geography but also the
historical notices themselves relative to the Negeb need
to be brought nearer to their original form. Some of
these have already been considered here; two more
may be mentioned in conclusion. ( a ) z Ch. 20, the
account of the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Moabites,
3379
NEHEMIAH
the Ammonites, and the Meunim. A plausible view of
the main geographical points has been given by Conder
( P E Q , 1875. p. 7 0 J ) and Buhl (PuL 97) ; it may he
added here that in v. 16 the Chronicler perhaps wrote,
a the wilderness of Jezreel' ; if we should not rather
emend ' Jeruel' into ' Jerahmeel,' and suppose the re-
casting of an older narrative in which various place-
names were different-e.g., ' Jerahmeel ' for ' Jeruel,'
' Kadesh' for ' Hazziz,' and ' Kadesh-jerahmeel' for
' Hazezon-tamar ' (see T AMAR ). It should be noticed
that in v. z En-kadesh is misread by the Chronicler as
En-gedi.' See Ziz, and cp C'rit. Bi6.
(6) 2 K. 147, Amaziah's victory over the Edomites.
Here JOKTHEEL[ q . ~ . ]should be read ' Jerahmeel.' It
seems that in spite of the favourite legend connecting
the name ' Jerahmeel' with the story of Hagar (see
I SAAC ), narrators went on devising fresh explanations
of the name. One such is found in Nu. 21 3 ; another
in z K. 1.i7. So inextricably are legendary narrative
and geographical fact interwoven ; so impossible is it to
study geography without a critical view of the Hebrew
documents and~theircontents !
See especially Wilton, The Negeb or 'South Countvy' of
- .
Scridture (1867) : E. H. Palmer. The Desert o f fhe Exodus.
Pt. 11. (r87ri: Trumhull. kadesh-harneu
8. Literature. (1884) : 6. Whliams, The koZy City (1849).
463-468 (Note on Soothern Border of Pales-
tine, with letter from J. Rowlands on his exploration of Kadesh
and the surrounding country). T. K. C.
NEGINAH, UPON (llJ9i>-5y),Ps, 61,tit. AV, but
RV ' on a stringed instrument.' The Masoretes, how-
ever, took ~ S J I (nZghLnath) to be in stat. constr. ;they
connected it by the accents with iv\,as if the phrase
meant ' accompanied with David's playing on stringed
instruments.' 6,Sym., Jer., Tg., render as if they
read niy?!p. These views are all impossible ; the text
needs careful emendation ; see N EGINOTH. T. K. C.
NEGINOTH, ON(nb'???; EN YMNOIC [b,Theod.];
EN YAAMOIC [A¶.]; AIA YAATHPIWN [Sym.].; in
psalmis), Pss. 4 ( EN YAAMOIC) 6 (om. A) 54 55 61 (?)
67 76 ; (titles), AV ; but RV ' on stringed instruments.'
But X-J] does not mean ' a stringed instrument,' nor is
it used in the plural (in Ps. 6913 [ 1 2 ] n i n x should be
*?31a@,*).~n i ~ i (Neginoth)
i is corrupted from n'nw
(Sheminith ; see PSALMS, 5 26, 26), and this from o m x
(Ethanites). Thus in Ps. 6 I (tit.) there is dittography.
The prefixed preposition was evidently altered as a
consequence of the faulty reFding ~ ~ Y J I .Observe that
the psalm in Hab. 3 is inconsistent. I t gives n i ~ 3 a - 5 yin
a. I, but [.] nii*x> in v. 19 (the title has by accident been
divided) ; see HA BAKKUK [BOOK], 5 8. n ' ~ ~ a n - $(or y
rather, n g ; r oj+y ' for the Sabbath-day') should he
substituted. @ in Hab. has &u TG ahoil See
S HEMINITH , U PON ; and cp MUSIC, 6. T. ti. c.
NEHELAMITE (Jer. 2924etc.). S ~ ~ S H E M A IAH
(2).
NEHEMIAH (;?'pn;, $8 30, 62, ' Yahwk is consola-
tion [or, a consoler],' but originally no doubt an ethnic
name, cp N AHAM , NAHAMANI, and see note 3. C1.-
Ganneau reports a late Jewish name irnni [Sceauz et
cachets isme6tes. 18831 ; BKAL NEEMIAC [genit.
NEEMIA; but in Neh. 11.BC.mg.sup. L, and in Neh.
1247 L, NEEMIO)']; N E E M I O C [B i U Ezra221,
N d r l M l b C [I Esd. 5 4 0 E11 N E M I A C [ z Mace. 1.36 v"1).
I. R. Hachaliah.3 a leader in the reoreanisation of
~ ~ ~~
the land of Judah. W e are in a favour-
'. Occasion Of able position for studying his career,
his enterprise* because a laree Dortion of the book
which bears his name (Neh. 11-75 11 1227-1331)comes
1 ' En-kadesh' is misread in the same way in I S. 23 zg 24 I.
2 DB* fell out owing to *niw(corrupted from[ipwl *.ma)%hi&
follows.
3 [The form is doubtful. See HACHALIAH. At any rate it
springs from an ethnic name and, if identical with Hilkiah,
from one of the ethnics connected with the Negeb. Nehemiah,
if=Naham, has a similar origin.]
3380
 NEHEMIAH
from a work of his own composition [which, however,
we must not read with a blind belief in Nehemiah’s
infallibility]. H e was one of the cupbearers of King
Aktaxerxes,i.e., of the first king of that name1 (465-425
B. c. )-[an important office-see CUPBEARER-which
gave him great influence with the king]. It so fell out
that while attending to his duties a t the royal winter
palace at Shushan or Susa, in the month of Kisleu or
December, 445 B.c., he received a visit from a party of
Jews from J u d z a , led by a kinsman of his own named
Hanani, who told him of the sad condition of the Jews
in ’ the province ’ (Judah or Jridara), and of the defence-
less state of Jerusalem. Greatly troubled by this news,
he betook himself to prayer and fasting [and from the
words of his prayer it appears, according to Kosters, that
it was not to any recent calamity that Hanani referred,
but to the old devastation by Nebuchadrezzar].
[This view of Kosters is rejected by We. ( G G N , 1895,
p. 170) and by Meyer (Entst. 56). With most recent
critics they are of opinion that the wall and gates of
Jernsalem were rebuilt by Ezra, and that their destruc-
tion (Neh. 1 3 ) was the work of the Samaritans (cp
Ezra 4, Neh. 4 7 ) acting with thesanction of Artaxerxes I.
It has also been held (Nold. Aufsifze ZUY pers. Gesch.
5 6 ; Che. OPs. 71), that it stood in some connection
with the revolt of the satrap Megabyzos (448 R . c . ) , with
which the Jews may, rightly or wrongly, have been
suspected of complicity.
The latter theory, however, is too hazardous. If the Jews of
Judaea bad been regarded as mixed up with this revolt, Artaxerxes such a return was impossible. The first thing, there-
would not have been so ready to accede to the wishes of Nehe-
miah ; indeed, Neh. 2 r9 implies that up to Nehemiah’s time the
Jews had not committed any overt act ofrebellion,zand we may
venture to suppose that the great king wished, through his
Jewish courtier Nehemiah, to reward the Jews of Judza for not
having been drawn away from their allegiance by Megahyzos.
As for the former theory, we cannot safely base anything on the
narrative and official documents in Ezra4, both of which are
most probably fictitious (see EZRA-NEH.), though Meyer and
Sellin have vigorously defended their genuineness ; see also
Winckler, A O P 2 2 1 0 8
The prevalent opinion, which assumes that Ezra came
t o Jerusalem before Nehemiah, rests on an imperfect
criticism of the compilation of the Chronicler, a n d
has been rightly rejected by Marquart (Fund. 5 8 )
and Winckler (AOF2216f.). To this it must be
added ( I ) that after Ezra’s failure in respect of the
mixed marriages we cannot understand how he should
have succeeded in stirring u p the people to restore the
wall, and put an impediment in the way of fraternising
with the Samaritans, and how, when Nehemiah takes
u p and not without difficulty, carries through the work
of restoration, no mention should be made of Ezra
(Neh. 1236 has been tampered with, see 5 5 ) ; and
( 2 ) that the conversation between Nehemiah and the
king in Neh. 2 makes no reference to a removal of a
royal prohibition to restore the walls. I t is no answer
t o this that Artaxerxes was good-natured but weak.
There is no evidence for this ; the manner in which h e
1 [The king under whom Nehemiah and Ezra lived must have
been the first Artaxerxes : otherwisethe growth ofthe Pentateuch
and of the Psalter is scarcely explicable. It is true, Marquart
(Fund.31) objects that if a son of Joiada was already married
in 433 (Neh. 13 ZS), Joiada’s grandson Jaddua could not possibly
have been high priest a century later under Darius 111. But
why need we take ‘Darius the Persian ’ (Neh. 1222) to be Darius
III.? It is not to the Chronicle: that Neh.121-26 is to he
assigned,but to an earlier writer. Jaddua’ may be an error for
Joiada’ (emend u. 113accordingly). Joiada, son of Eliashih,,
was apparently high priest in 433 (Neh. 13 28, where ‘high priest :plies
refers f o ‘Joiada ’) ; his son ‘ Johanan’ may well have been high
priest i n 424. Thus ‘the reign of Darius the Persian’ (12 m), Jewish captives C.?P)- had returned to Palestine, but (so
corresponds to ‘the days of Johanan b. Eliashib‘ (v. 23). I?
Neb. 12 II ‘Jonathan’ should of course be ‘Johanan’v Jaddua
goes out). ‘Johanan’ in Ezra106, ifcorrect, must be a brother
of Joiada ; but the name may be a mistake (due to the redactor
of Ezra’s memoir) for ‘ Joiada.’]
2 [The expression is designed. Tattenai may have given
reason for suspecting the Jews of a disloyal temper, which
may, indeed, account for the sudden disappearance of ZERLTB- is required by the preceding word peZ@rih (”pb), ‘those who
BAIIRI. (q.v.). More than this we cannot suppose, and per&-
ent loyalty during the revolt of Megahyzos would wipe out
previous suspicions.]
3381
NEHEMIAH
reached the throne certainly does not favour this view :
but c p ARTAXERXES, a d f i n . ( 3 ) The language of the
Samaritans in Neh. 219f. 333 [41] seems to imply that
no previous attempt like that of Nehemiah had been
made.
Not less untenable is the theory which has lately been revived
by Sellin (SerubbabeZ, 5 x 3 ; cp r97), viz., that the wall and
gates had been restored by Zeruhbabel under Uarius I., hut
had shortly afterwards been destroyed, when the royalistic
movement centering in this prince collapsed (to this he finds
an allusion in Ps. S940). Long ago (‘554) Ewald (GV7is) 4 156)
proposed the same view, which he supported by the very same
psalms as are appealed to by Sellin, viz., 44 60 74 79 80 S9
(Ewald adds 85, Sellin S3 lO‘2tpsalms which he bad previously
(with more plausibility) referred to ‘the destruction under
Bag?%& related in Jos. Ant. xi. 7 I . This, however is con-
nected with a historical theory respecting the career oi ZERVB-
BABEL [q.v.], which has no evidence in its favour, and the view
about the destruction of the walls is inconsistent with Zech.
24J Cp PSALMS (BOOK), $55 28, 32. We are now (1901) able
to add that the author himself has withdrawn this theory
(Studien Z U I EntstehungsgPsrlr. etc., 2 181 186). His present
view is that the walls were heine rehuilt under Camhvses (or
Cyrus) when they were destroyed by t h e Samaritans (p. 162).
Against this see ( 3 ) in the preceding paragraph.
Nothing therefore remains but to consider the claims
of the theory of Kosters.
( I ) T h a t no recent destruction is referred to is plain
from the prayer of Nehemiah. The great object before
the mind of the suppliant is the return of the exiles
t o Jerusalem. Until the wall had been restored, a n d
the community had adopted the same view of religious
purity as was current among the Jews of the Dispersion,
fore, was to get the wall restored. Had this been done
earlier, a large body of exiles would have migrated
before the time of Ezra. They did not so migrate, for
Nehemiah evidently found no considerable Babylonian
element a t Jerusalem : therefore the wall cannot have
been rebuilt before the time of Nehemiah.
( 2 ) T h e same result follows from the language of
Hanani in Neh. 12 f: H e does not indeed underrate
the miserable condition of Jerusalem; but the main
point with him is the affliction and the insults suffered
by its inhabitants. That is the novel element in the
tidings which he brings. Shortly before Nehemiah’s
governorship the relations between the Jews and the
Samaritans were becoming more and more strained.
There was as yet no regular feud ; but the tendency to
a feud was not wanting. There was a n active, though
not as yet a predominant, orthodox party at Jerusalem,
and Sanballat and Tobiah had come to feel that the
differences which parted them were greater than the
resemblances which united them.’’ They did not
withhold taunts and insults, which were returned in
good measure to them a n d to their Jewish sympathisers
by Jewish prophetic writers (Is. 573 65 I - j 663).
Hanani, doubtless, feared that worse things would
follow, and attributed this to the want of a material
barrier to intercourse between the unorthodox party
in Jerusalem and the Samaritans outside. Hence,
probably, the stress which he laid, when visiting Nehe-
miah, on the destruction of the wall (Neh. 13).
Both in Semdbakl and recently in Studkz ii. Sellin con-
troverts Kosters’ interpretation of Neh. 1 3 where the Jews of
Judza are called ‘the remnant that are I;ft of the captivity
( T O i l if3 11NWJ 1 W K P’lNWJn).’ &i (???), according to Sellin,
means the same as g&ih (n>i), ‘those who had been carried
away.’ Kosters, however (and so Marq. Fund. 35), takes the
phrase to mean ‘those who have escaped the deportation in
e time of Nebuchadrezzar.’ According to Sellin, Hanani
that a considerable number of Babylonian Jews-
at leaqt in Serulidnbel) that many of these had lost their
lives in the troublous times of Zerubhabel-a very forced
explanation. The true sense is shown by E z r a 9 7 , ‘we have
been given up . . . to the sword to captivity and to
spoiling’ (KV), where ‘to captivity? clearly mra& ‘ t o be
carried captive.’ Kosters’ view is perfectly correct. and indeed
have escaped.’]
1 Jew. h’el. Life, 4 j .
3382
 NEHEMIAH
For three months Nehemiah remained a prey to his
own sad thoughts, and then his opportunity came.
Artaxer.ns one day questioned him about his depres-
sion, and Nehemiah, after secret prayer to God for
help, laid his case before the king. Artaxerxes and his
consort (who also was present) were favourable to the
request, but desired that Nehemiah’s leave of absence
should be as brief as possible. It would seem, how-
ever, that he left Susa invested with the governorship of
Judah for a n indefinite period; [though the text of
5 14 may perhaps require a closer inspection ; see § 51.
Provided with letters to the governors of the region t o
be traversed, and with a military escort, Nehemiah in
due course reached Jerusalem.
Within three days from his arrival he addressed
himself to his work. After making a nocturnal survey
I Whether Sanballat really believed that Nehemiah was
2. Restoring of the walls, secretly 2nd almost UII-
accompanied, he began to stir up both
walls. rulers and ueoDle to take in hand the
work of restoration. This ;hey declared themselves
ready to d o (211-18). Prompt action was taken, and
not only Jerusalem, but also other places, such as
Jericho, Tekoa, Gibeon, Mizpah, joined in the work ;
high priest, priests and Levites, civil administrators,
and heads of guilds, and even women, became each
responsible for some part of the building (31-32).
[This passage, as well as the brief account of Nehemiah’s
secret visit of inspection, deserves careful study from a topo-
graphical poi,nt of view. Some of the proper names, too, are
most interesting ; e.g., REBODEIAH,C OL- HOZEH, HALLOHESH, the time ; but historical students will seek t o d o justice
HARHAIAH, HASSENAAH.]
The difficulties, however, with which the governor had
t o contend were still preat.
- Influential persons of non- as well as with hostility without. H e had to listen to
3. Opposition Israelite descent-‘ Sanballat the Horo-
from without. nite, Tobiah the Ammonite servant
IEV ‘ t h e servant, the Ammonite’l.
Geshem, or Gashku, the Arabian,’ of whom at least thk
first two had intermarried with leading Israelite families
-had regarded the coming of Nehemiah ’ to seek the
welfare of the Israelites’ (210) wvith no favour. They
vied with one another in ridiculing Nehemiah’s under-
taking ( ‘ 2 1 g j 333-35 [41-3]). Then, waxing bolder, they
planned a sudden attack on the builders of the wall
(47f. II [ ~ ~ 51).f . Nehemiah, however, was warned in
time by Jewish friends on the frontier. At once he sus-
pended building operations. and posted his people behind
the walls with arms, so that the enemy was overawed
and had to abandon his plan. Henceforward Nehemiah
was continually on his guard. Of his people one-half
were in constant readiness to repel any onslaught. T h e
builders themselves had their weapons by their side,
a n d all the workers passed the night within the walls,
a precaution that had not previonsly been thought
necessary (415.23 [9-r7]). The enemy’s next resort [as
Nehemiah represents] was t o cunning (61-14). Over
a n d over again they invited the governor to conference.
On one occasion they pretend that their object was
t o counteract certain evil rumours which had been
circulated against him ; on another they feed a Jewish
prophet to induce Nehemiah to seek refuge in a part of
the temple that was forbidden to the laity. so that he
might lose influence with the people. Nehemiah saw
through them, however, and did not fall into their traps.
[The section of Nehemiah‘s memoir on which the
above sketch is based needs a very thorough criticism.
I t is no doubt plausible to assume that Sanballat and
1 [According to Wi. ( A O F 2 2 3 4 8 ) , the object of Nehemiah’s
mission was to introduce a n important modification into the
purely hierarchical system of government lately introduced by
Ezra in the priestly code, the high priest Elia-hiS having shown
himself untrustworthy. Once more the land was placed under
a secular official-a $e&(ih (>??), or ‘governor,’ appointed by
the court. When Nehemiah returned to Susa, Eliashib, who
coveted the support of other noble but non-lsraelitish families,
renewed his intercourse with Tobiah the Ammonite ;and Nehe-
miah on his second arrival at Jerusalem, punished this by
baniihinp certain members of the high-priestly family on a
legal pretext. But Nehemiah’s mission can be accounted for
without this hypothesis.]
3383
NEHEMIAH
Tobiah were a Moabite and a n Ammonite respectively,
a n d to illustrate the intermarriage of Jewish families
with them by Neh. 131. It would seem, however, that
Sanballat and Tobiah were worshippers of Yahwe, and
from Neh. 4 2 [334] that Sanballat was a kinsman of
the Samaritans, These considerations throw some
doubt on Kosters’ view.
T h e most critical course is to emend the text of the passage
referred to (:; 34 [4 21): which is admittedly in some disorder, and
to read, ‘-4nd he said before the Jerahmeelites and Miyites,
What are the Jews doing?’ See Crit. Bib.; the proof of this
emendation lies in the interpolated & ~ D K explained as cor-
rupted o+non,* (dittograpbed). Sanballat (if the name may
pass) WZLS a Mierite of N. Arabia; Tobiah (or rather Reho-
bothi?) was probably called a Jerahmeelite, not an Ammonite.
‘ T h e servant’(cp RV) is a corruption of ‘the Arabian,’ which
is itself a misreading. See SANEALLAT, TOBIAH.
about to rebel against Persia (219 66) is uncertain ;
but it was, at any rate, a colourable pretext for his
opposition. The sudden disappearance of ZEKURBAREL
[q...] seems to have been caused by just suspicions of
his untrustworthiness, and some Jewish prophets niay
possibly have represented Nehemiah as the destined
Messiah.’ That Sanballat was unconciliatory cannot
fairly be said. Undeterred by a first rebuff, he niade
four more attempts to bring about a conference with
the governor (62-5). Nehemiah’s cause was better
than that of Sanballat; but Nehemiah carried his
suspiciousness to an extreme. H e was the man for
riot only to him but also to his opponents.]
Nehemiah had to contend with pusillanimity within,
4. Difficulties complaints of the dificulty of the work
( 4 IO C4]) and to grievances of the poor
within. against the rich ( 5 I 8 ) ; nor could he
by any means certainly reckon on the fidelity of the
Jewish relatives of his enemies ( 6 1 7 - 1 9 ) . But these
obstacles also he was able to overconle. By his
vigorous measures of defence, by the firmness of his
faith in his own vocation and in the help of God, he
inspired the timid with courage, and all with a spirit of
respect and reverence. Above all was he strong by his
generous disinterestedness ; thus, himself renouncing
all claim upoii his debtors, he induced the rich Jews t o
engage themselves to restore the possessions of their
poorer compatriots which they had received in pawn,
and not to exact payment of their debts ; the dues
which as governor he was legally entitled to exact for
his own use, he refrained from collecting ; he gave up
his personal servants that they might labour a t the
building of the wall ; daily he received at his table Jews
from outside the city who came to Jerusalem partly t o
hold council with him, and partly for the purpose of
sacrificing (chap. 5 ) . In this way he was able to make
head against all difficulties and at last bring his great
work to a conclusion. On the 25th of Elul, after fifty-
two days’ labour, the restoration of the wall was com-
pleted ( 6 I 5).
A solemn dedication ceremony ensued. l’wo choirs
of priests and singers, followed by the rulers a n d the
5. Dedication, people, and headed, the one by
Hoshaiah and the other by Nehemiah,
marched from one fixed point in opposite directions,
with music and song, ;dong the walls, and rejoined one
another for the solemn festival in the temple ( 1 2 2 7 - 4 3 ) .
[It is stated in Neh. 514 that Nehemiah acted as
governor of Judah ‘ from the 20th to the 32nd year of
Artaxerxes the king, that is, 12 years.‘ This must
surely be due to a later hand. Nehemiah’s leave was
only for a set time, and the king evidently expected him
to rettirn soon. The restoration of the wall was taken
in hand promptly, and was effected in fifty-two days
(Neh. 6 r 5). It is true Nehemiah had ulterior objects.
But apparently h e had not communicated these to
1 /fw.Re(. L;fe, 4bj:
3384
 NEHEMIAH
Artaxerxes. If Josephus's date (see n. I ) be correct,
Nehemiah's governorship lasted only seven years. The
context of Neh. 514. however, suggests that the memoir
was written soon after the completion of the wall (see
v . 16). Not improbably we should read in a. 14, for
' thirty-second,' ' twenty-second.' thus allowing f w o
years for the governorship. This amply suffices for the
works ascribed to Nehemiah. T h e mistake 'thirty-
second ' would be caused by the fact that Nehemiah's
second brief governorship is placed in the 3znd year of
Artaxerxes (Neh. 136).]
The walls and gates once set in order, Nehemiah's
next care was for their being properly guarded, and for
the due opening a n d closing of the gates : he also saw
t o the government of the city, devised means for aug-
menting its population by immigration ( 7 I-5a 11 I f:),
and successfully induced many Levites. who still re-
mained in other cities and villages, to transfer their
residence to Jerusalem (cp 13105).
[Between Nehemiah's first and second visits Marq. a n d Che.
place Ezra's attempt at reorganisation. Nehemiah is nowhere
mentioned as pre5ent in Jerusalem in the records of Ezra ; Ezra
nowhere in those of Nehemiah. The reference to Ezra in
Neh. 1236 is a n interpolation of t h e redactor: in Neh. 1233,
Ezra (=Azariah, 1 0 2 ) is a gentilic name. On t h e supposed
references to Nehemiah in the memoirs of Ezra, see T IRSHATHA.
That Nehemiah found n o Babylonian element in t h e population
of Judah worth reckoning with appears from his own record.
The only difficulty is in the datd i n Ezra 7 7 (cp Neh. 1 I ). Per-
haps we should read, for 'in the seventh year,' 'in the twenty-
seventh year' (Y@ C'?O'Y n!d8); similarly in v. 8. It is true
that Ezra i 1-10 comes to us in a revisrd form : but we need not
assume that the date is the insertion of the reviser. Cp
CHRONOLOGY, I 14.1
After a visit to Artaxerxes (Neh. 136) in the 3znd [or
possibly aznd] year of his reign, 433 B . C . [or 443?],
visit : Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem.
6.
re,igious refom. H c now appeared more than formerly
as a religious reformer. The holders
of the higher offices of the priesthood learned what stuff
he was made of. ' The priest Eliashib' had given the
use of one of the chambeers belonging to the temple
to Tobiah. Nehemiah indignantly cast out Tobiah's
household utensils (134-9). Worse still, a grandson of
Eliashib' the high priest had married a daughter of
Sanballat. Him Nehemiah expelled from the sacred
city (1328). I n the same section (u. zg) the governor
makes reference to a number of priests who had
desecrated their office : we may assume therefore that
this was not the only drastic measure carried out by
Nehemiah in the temple. Certainly it is presupposed
in Ezra 9 f. Neh. 9 J that shortly afterwards the
priesthood which served in the temple was of the right
sort. It is not impossible that Nehemiah even deposed
the high priest i n favour of his son Jehohanan, the ally
of Ezra (Ezra 106). His next measures of reform were
directed against those who had married foreign wives ;
h e made them swear that they would not suffer their
children to intermarry with foreigners, and did not
hesitate physically to assault the recalcitrant (1323-27).
H e took measnres to prevent traders with their wares
from entering the city on the sabbath day (1319-22);
secured that the Levites. who during his absence had
again left the city, should thenceforward n o longer be
kept out of their dues (13 10-14) : and made certain
regulations with reference to the temple service, the
wood-offering, and the first-fruits (13308 ).
Nehemiah'sactivity in Jerusalem after his return having
thus been so different from that of his earlier period,
,. Office, and so much more decidedly ecclesiastical,
I t becomes a question whether during his
second period he still continued to hold the dignity of
governor. There is some reason for doubting whether
he did. H e himself expressly says [in the difficult
passage, 614, on which see above, 5 51 that he was
' governor in the land of Judah ' for only twelve years,
down to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes ; and in the parts
1 [No doubt the Manasseh, of whom Jos. Ant. xi. 8 2.4 tells
us.
3385
NEHEMIAH
of the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah which relate to the time
of his second visit, h e is called [if we may trust the text]
the Tirshatha and no longer pe&i or govfrnor. See
TIKSHATHA.
It seems probable, therefore, that on the occasion of
his journey to court, Nehemiah had asked and obtained
a change of position. Why h e desired this we are
not told; but we are able to guess. From the outset
Nehemiah's programme had been the restoration of
Israel, to which the restoration of the walls was only
subsidiary. To this restoration the most serious obstacle
was the conduct of Nehemiah's non-Jewish adversaries.
Their efforts to frustrate the restoration were indeed in
vain : still, their influence a t Jerusalem continued to be
very great, because of their alliance with the ruling
families among the Jews, and even with that of the high
priest. Their Jewish relatives who had supported
Nehemiah in his rebuilding of the wall seemed dis-
inclined to assist him in counteracting the foreign in-
fluences, on behalf of which indeed they openly took
sides against him ( 6 17-19). Nehemiah saw clearly,
however, that, if Israel was to be restored, the high-
priesthood must not be allowed to remain in the hands
of Sanballat's and Tobiah's relations, and that a re-
ligious reformation had to be brought about. This h e
desired to accomplish ; but for the purpose he needed to
have a position that would enable him to come forward
in another capacity than that of governor of Judaxa. I t
was with refprence to this that h e made his journey u p
to court, and we find him returning apparently with
permission to come forward as a reformer of the
religious condition of Judnra, not as Pehah, but as
Tirshatha. I t is not inconceivable that, in connection
with his plans for reformation of the priesthood,
Nehemiah had asked the king to hand over to the high
priest some of those functions of governor which. in
point of fact, we find him exercising a t a later period.
[This hypothesis depends to some extent on the cor-
rectness of a very strange-looking word (Lnl-fivsh(itLi),
which in every passage where it occurs may be corrupt,
and in some of the passages may have been inserted
by a glossator. This at least, however, it is safe to
assume, when drawn a second time by patriotic anxiety
from Susa, Nehemiah came rather as special high
commissioner than as governor. See Jew. ReZ. L i f ,
64.1
The conjecture that Nehemiah's journey t n court was the
occasion of the return of Ezra and his hand of exiles to Jeru-
salem 1s natural. By what means could Nehemiah better
hring about the accomplishment of his aims t h a n by such a
strengthening of the Jewish element in Judza? That at all
events he gave his powerful aid to Ezra, co-operated with him
in the formation of t h e congregation, and also took part with
him in introducinx the new law, we have endeavoured to show
elsewhere (E ZRA, 88 6-8).
Nehemiah was a strong m a n : he achieved great
things, and conquered difficulties that were well- nigh
insuperable. It was faith that made him strong;
though he is himself the chronicler of his own good
deeds (519 1 3 1 4 z z 31), we cannot doubt either the
gennineness of his piety or the purity of his patriotism ;
h e sacrificed much for the restoration of Israel, the
object of his faith and prayers. N o wonder that this
man was affectionately remembered by posterity. Ecclus.
extols him (4913 : see, however. Swete's text) as the
restorer of the city walls : and in one of the two letters
with which z Macc. opens (11-2 1 8 ) he is even celebrated
as the man that rebuilt the temple and discovered the
altar-fire which. at the destruction of the temple, had.
at God's command, been hidden by the priests. More-
over, in 2 Macc. 2 13, where it is said that he commenced
a library of accounts of the kings and the prophets, and
1 [All that Nehemiah says however is that the nobles of
Judah kept up a correspondedce with Tdhiah (Neh. 6 17). What
follows in 71. i g is incorrectly read. i*n310 can hardly mean
'his good deeds.' Read ' Moreover Rehobothites ( ~ n i r n ~ )
were (continually)speaking before me, and reporting my words
to him.' In justification of this, see TOBIAH.]
3386
 NEHEMIAH (BOOK)
writings of David, and letters of kings concerning
temple-offerings, he is honoured as collector of part of
Israel’s sacred literature. Thus he was regarded in later
times as the restorer, not only of Jerusalem and its
walls, but also of the temple and its services ; and also
as the man who rendered important service towards the
formation of the sacred canon of Israel.
2. B. Azhuk chief of half the district of Beth-zur, mentioned
in list of wall-dnilders (Neh. 3 16). See above, $ ~ j;:also E ZRA
ii., $5 16 Ii.1 15 d.
3. One o< the leaders (see E ZRA ii., $ 8 4 of the Jews in the
great post-exilic list (Ezra 2 2 Neh. 7 7 = I Esd. 5 8 Nehemias).
See E ZRA ii.,$9, and G O V E R N L I E N T . W.H. K.-T. K.C.
NEHEMIAH (BOOK). See E ZRA A N D N EHEMIAH .
NEHILOTE, ‘ with the’ [RV], or, ‘ u p o n ’ [AV],
(ni5w-h; y m p T H C K ~ H P O N O M O Y C H C ; &no that
KAH pohoc I W N [Aq. 1, y n e p KAH poyx I w N [Synl. 1,
PYO hereditatibus [Jer.]), Ps. 5 (title). Interpreters
differ precisely as in the case of MAHALATH[q.n.].
.But we may be sure that ‘ (the) Nehiloth’ is not the these (see e.&, KB 22, p. 35) may have been protective
first word (‘heritages’?) of a well-known song, nor a
synonym for &d&??m, ‘ flutes * (see, however, RV’”p.),
nor miswritten for rn@UJth, ‘ dances ’ (so apparently
Tg. reads). As Gratz has pointed out, it is simply a
corruption of ni$y($ T h e versions all agree in dis-
allowing the 1 in n r h n ; it is true, they also disallow
the I, which, however, is of n o significance. Tg.‘s
reading suggests that between ni&yn-$y and n~$*mn-Sy with the brazen ‘ sea,’ and the brazen oxen from Baby-
there was a transitional reading nsnan-sy ; i.e., Alamoth
first became M-h-I-th and then N-h-I-th. See further
P SALMS (B OOK ), § 26 [I]. T. K. C .
NEHUM (DVl>), Neh. 77=Ezra 22, REHUM.
NEIIUSHTA (Nvdn!, J 68), the mother of king
JEHO~ACHIN ( 2 K . 248, N f C e A [B], N A l C e A , [A]. above, which is supported by the etiological story1 in Nu. 21
N e e c e A N [L]). T h e readings quoted approximate
curiously to the name N EHUSHTAN [p.~.], and are on
this account strongly suggestive of corruption. Com-
paring owin (which we take to be from 0113) and iiwm
(from pun), we may suppose ~ n w n tobe i a corruption of
n*+. T h e queen-mother then was Cushith-;.e., a some modification in order to become plausible. Hence Ren-
N. Arabian. Her father was ‘ Elnathan of Jerusalem.’
Elnathan, howerer, is probably an expansion of Ethan
(cp N ETHANIAH ), and the very unlikely ‘ Jerusalem ’
(like Abishalom ’ in I K. 152 IO) is a corruption of
Jerahmeel. Cp M AACHAH . T. K. C .
NEHUSHTAN (Igtc’nJ; N E c e A h e I [Bl, N E C e A N
[A]. NesceaN [L] ; Nohestan, fluasthan).
2 K.1 8 4 6 is rendered thus in E V , ‘ a n d he brake in
pieces ... Nehushtan‘ (with two marg. rends., ‘Or,
it was called,’ and ‘ T h a t is, a piece of
Name‘ brass’). T h e implication is that when
HEZEKIAH [q. v.] destroyed this idolatrous object, he
called it ‘ a mere piece of brass (bronze).‘ It cannot
be denied that this view of 13 q y i is plausible ; it is
also favoured by &PA ( K a i ~ K ~ ~ F U E Y T) o. suppose that
those who offered sacrifices ( i ~ ;g see I NCENSE , 5 I) to
the brazen serpent called it ‘ Piece of Brass,’ is surely
absurd. Still, the grammatical structure of the sentence
favours the view that a statement respecting the name
given by the worshippers is intended (Klost. reads
x ? ~ or
! ) ~ i p ;j cp L K C L ~i ~ d h ~ u a uand ) , the question
arises whether ]nun1 represents correctly the name given
by the worshippers to this sacred object. T h e theory
which is archzologically the most defensible as to
the religious significance of the brazen serpent has
suggested to the present writer that the original word
may have been p:i$ Leviathan, and that the deutero-
nomist, who (probably) adopted z K. 1 8 4 - 5 a from tho
royal annals, out of a religious scruple changed ]n*i$into
inwni, which of course involved interpreting is-mpi,
‘ and he (Hezekiah) called it. ’
1 Or else 915 in Inq$fell out owing to the preceding 15, and
gqi was inserted b y conjecture for the missing letters. This
3387
NEIGHBOUR
The early writer from whom the deuteronomist draws
in z K. 1 8 4 brings Nehssbtan (?) into connection with
the brazen serpent ( n @ y WgI, &#w
*’ Origin and XahKoOu [BAFL]) mentioned in Nu.
219. Combining these two passages we
are justified in supposing that in the regal period the
superstitious Israelites sacrificed to the idol to obtain the
recovery of their sick (cp S ERPENT ). It would not,
however, follow that a healing virtue had always been
supposed to be inherent in this sacred object. T h e fact
(as we may venture to regard it) that the brazen oxen in
I I<. 7 25 were really copies of the oxen which symbolised
Marduk in Babylonian temples (from which the brazen
‘ sea,’ also symbolic, was probably derived) suggests
for an explanation of Nehushtan we should look to
Babylonia (see C REATION , §§ 13, 19, 22). Now, it is
certain from very early inscriptions ( K B 31, p. 143 ;
32, pp. 21, 35, 73j that Babylonian temples contained,
not only brazen oxen, but also brazen serpents. Some of
serpents, such as were worshipped in the larger Egyptian
temples; but when, a s in Solomon’s temple, only a
single one is mentioned, it is reasonable to suppose that
it is the ‘raging serpent’ ( i e . , TiZmat) that is meant,
as in the inscription of king Agum-kakrimi (KB 31,
p. 143). If so,the brazen serpent (more properly called
L EVIATHAN , see above, I), which Solomon adopted
lonia, was originally a trophy of the Creator’s victory
over the serpent of chaos.
In later times it is very probable that the true meaning was
forgotten ; it appears from Am. 9 3 (see SEwm?., $ 3x)that
the prophet Amos had heard only an echo of the old dragon-
myth. A new meaning would therefore naturally become
attached to the venerated synibol-the meaning suggested
(cp Baudissin, Stud. Sem. Rel. 1288).
A less probable theory of the brazen serpent must not be un-
recorded. UT.K. Smith thought (1. ofPAiZ.9 g ) t h a t ‘Nehush-
tan’ represented the totem of the family of &avid, and was
worshi ped by members of that stock in the manner described
in E$. 8 8 . This theory, however, is based on the traditioual
text of 2 S.17 25 (see NAHASH), so that the totem-theory needs
zinger has suqgested that there may have been a serpent-clan
among the tribes which united to form the Israelitish people cp
Gen. 4917, of which Nehushtan may have been the sagred
symbol just a s the A R K [q.7,.1 may have been that of the tribe
of Joseph. I t is very doubtful, however, whether the so-called
‘serpent-names, N AHASH , NAHSHON, N UN , and NEHUSHTA
are textually sound ; all are in various degrees suspicious.
Was the brazen serpent in the temple really of primitive
origin? We may well doubt it. The presumption is that it was
neither more nor less ancient than the other sacred objects of
Babylonian affinities in the temple of Solomon (cp C REATION ,
5 ‘91.2 T. K. C.
NEIEL ($8’I?>,
~ . on the first part of the name see
Z A L M U N N AINAHA ; [Bl, ANIHA [AI. NAWHA [L]),
mentioned with Beth-emek in the delimitation of Asher;
Josh. 19~7t. See B ETH- EMEK and cp N EAH . Conder
finds Neiel at Kh. Ya‘nin, g m. E. of ‘Akku, and
Robinson at the village Mi‘ur z m. E. of Ya‘nin.
Both are no doubt ancient sites (see Gutkin, GuL
1 4 3 4 436).
NEIGHBOUB (0TTAHCION) answersin the LXX to
nmg
nF ’ih, m.
‘immith, rid*, n!2 ?y I h p ~ i ~ a h
’e2 bdyith.
approaches NBldeke’s suggestion, d?; (ZDMG, 1888, p.
482 n. 1). But the combination of these two terms for ‘serpent’
codld not have been original. Klost. is also a t any rate on the
right track; he explains (in* vnj), ‘ancient serpent.’ See
SERPENT.
1 The view here taken of Nu. 21 5-9 is not disproved by W.
H. Ward’s discovery of a ‘Hittite’ cylinder on which worship
is apparently represented as offered to a serpent on a pole.
Indeed, such a representation helps us to understand how the
story came to arise (cp S ERPENT).
2 The writer has maintained these theories for several years,
nor is he under obligations to other critics. Only after writing
the above did he observe Stade’s combination of suggestions in
CVZ 1 4 6 7 , one of which is that the idol Nehushtan might h e
connected with the cultus of the sky-serpent.
3388