A BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
DICTIONARY:

[An intimate acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures is a secure haven, and an impregnable bulwark, and an immovable tower, and imperishable glory, and impenetrable armour, and unfading joy, and perpetual delight, and whatever other excellence can be uttered.]

DAGON, , corn, from , or , a fish, god of the Philistines. It is the opinion of some that Dagon was represented like a woman, with the lower parts of a fish, like a triton or syren. Scripture shows clearly that the statue of Dagon was human, at least, the upper part of it, 1 Sam. v, 4, 5. A temple of Dagon at Gaza was pulled down by Samson, Judges xvi, 23, &c. In another, at Ashdod, the Philistines deposited the ark of God, 1 Sam. v, 1–3. A city in Judah was called Beth-Dagon; that is, the house, or temple, of Dagon, Joshua xv, 41; and another on the frontiers of Asher, Joshua xix, 27.

DALMANUTHA. St. Mark says that Jesus Christ embarked with his disciples on the lake of Tiberias, and came to Dalmanutha, Mark viii, 10, but St. Matthew calls it Magdala, Matt. xv, 39. It seems that Dalmanutha was near to Magdala, on the western side of the lake.

DALMATIA, a part of old Illyria, lying along the gulf of Venice. Titus preached here, 2 Tim. iv, 10.

DAMASCUS, a celebrated city of Asia, and anciently the capital of Syria, may be accounted one of the most venerable places in the world for its antiquity. It is supposed to have been founded by Ux, the son of Aram; and is, at 287least, known to have subsisted in the time of Abraham, Gen. xv, 2. It was the residence of the Syrian kings, during the space of three centuries; and experienced a number of vicissitudes in every period of its history. Its sovereign, Hadad, whom Josephus calls the first of its kings, was conquered by David, king of Israel. In the reign of Ahaz, it was taken by Tiglath Pileser, who slew its last king, Rezin, and added its provinces to the Assyrian empire. It was taken and plundered, also, by Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, the generals of Alexander the Great, Judas Maccabeus, and at length by the Romans in the war conducted by Pompey against Tigranes, in the year before Christ, 65. During the time of the emperors, it was one of their principal arsenals in Asia, and is celebrated by the emperor Julian as, even in his day, “the eye of the whole east.” About the year 634, it was taken by the Saracen princes, who made it the place of their residence, till Bagdad was prepared for their reception; and, after suffering a variety of revolutions, it was taken and destroyed by Tamerlane, A. D. 1400. It was repaired by the Mamelukes, when they gained possession of Syria; but was wrested from them by the Turks, in 1506; and since that period has formed the capital of one of their pachalics. The modern city is delightfully situated about fifty miles from the sea, in a fertile and extensive plain, watered by the river which the Greeks called Chrysorrhoras, or “Golden River,” but which is known by the name of Barrady, and of which the ancient Abana and Pharpar are supposed to have been branches. The city is nearly two miles in length from its north-east to its north-west extremity; but of very inconsiderable breadth, especially near the middle of its extent, where its width is much contracted. It is surrounded by a circular wall, which is strong, though not lofty; but its suburbs are extensive and irregular. Its streets are narrow; and one of them, called Straight, mentioned in Acts ix, 11, still runs through the city about half a mile in length. The houses, and especially those which front the streets, are very indifferently built, chiefly of mud formed into the shape of bricks, and dried in the sun; but those toward the gardens, and in the squares, present a more handsome appearance. In these mud walls, however, the gates and doors are often adorned with marble portals, carved and inlaid with great beauty and variety; and the inside of the habitation, which is generally a large square court, is ornamented with fragrant trees and marble fountains, and surrounded with splendid apartments, furnished and painted in the highest style of luxury. The market places are well constructed, and adorned with a rich colonnade of variegated marble. The principal public buildings are, the castle, which is about three hundred and forty paces in length; the hospital, a charitable establishment for the reception of strangers, composing a large quadrangle lined with a colonnade, and roofed in small domes covered with lead; and the mosque, the entrance of which is supported by four large columns of red granite; the apartments in it are numerous and magnificent, and the top is covered with a cupola ornamented with two minarets.

Damascus is surrounded by a fruitful and delightful country, forming a plain nearly eighty miles in circumference; and the lands, most adjacent to the city, are formed into gardens of great extent, which are stored with fruit trees of every description. “No place in the world,” says Mr. Maundrell “can promise to the beholder at a distance a greater voluptuousness;” and he mentions a tradition of the Turks, that their prophet, when approaching Damascus, took his station upon a certain precipice, in order to view the city; and, after considering its ravishing beauty and delightful aspect, was unwilling to tempt his frailty by going farther; but instantly took his departure with this remark, that there was but one paradise designed for man, and that, for his part, he was resolved not to take his in this world. The air or water of Damascus, or both, are supposed to have a powerful effect in curing the leprosy, or, at least, in arresting its progress, while the patient remains in the place.

The Rev. James Conner visited Damascus in 1820, as an agent of the Church Missionary Society. He had a letter from the archbishop of Cyprus to Seraphim, patriarch of Antioch, the head of the Christian church in the east, who resides at Damascus. This good man received Mr. Conner in the most friendly manner; and expressed himself delighted with the system and operations of the Bible Society. He undertook to encourage and promote, to the utmost of his power, the sale and distribution of the Scriptures throughout the patriarchate; and, as a proof of his earnestness in the cause, he ordered, the next day, a number of letters to be prepared, and sent to his archbishops and bishops, urging them to promote the objects of the Bible Society in their respective stations.

DAMN, and DAMNATION, are words synonymous with condemn and condemnation. Generally speaking, the words are taken to denote the final and eternal punishment of the ungodly. These terms, however, sometimes occur in the New Testament in what may be termed a less strict, or secondary sense. Thus, when the Apostle says to the Romans, “He that doubteth,” namely, the lawfulness of what he is doing, “is damned if he eat,” Rom. xiv, 23; the meaning is, he stands condemned in his own mind. Again: when St. Paul tells the Corinthians, that “he that eateth and drinketh” of the Lord’s Supper “unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,” 1 Cor. xi, 29; the original word, µa, there is thought by many to import no more than temporal judgments, and that the Apostle explains himself in the same sense when he says, “For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and many sleep,” or die. This is at least one mode of interpreting the “damnation” of which St. Paul here speaks; but probably the true sense is the bringing guilt upon the conscience, and thereby a liability, without remission, to future judgment.

288DAN, the fifth son of Jacob, Gen. xxx, 1–6. Dan had but one son, whose name was Hushim, Gen. xlvi, 23; yet he had a numerous posterity; for, on leaving Egypt, this tribe consisted of sixty-two thousand seven hundred men able to bear arms, Num. i, 38. Of Jacob’s blessing Dan, see Gen. xlix, 16, 17. They took Laish, Judges xviii, 1; Joshua xix, 47. They called the city Dan, after their progenitor. The city of Dan was situated at the northern extremity of the land of Israel: hence the phrase, “from Dan to Beersheba,” denoting the whole length of the land of promise. Here Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, set up one of his golden calves, 1 Kings xii, 29; and the other at Bethel.

DANCING. It is still the custom in the east to testify their respect for persons of distinction by music and dancing. When Baron Du Tott, who was sent by the French government to inspect their factories in the Levant, approached an encampment of Turcomans, between Aleppo and Alexandretta, the musicians of the different hordes turned out, playing and dancing before him all the time he and his escort were passing by their camp. Thus, it will be recollected, “the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music,” when he returned in triumph from the slaughter of the Philistines. In the oriental dances, in which the women engage by themselves, the lady of highest rank in the company takes the lead, and is followed by her companions, who imitate her steps, and if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderfully soft. The steps are varied according to the pleasure of her who leads the dance, but always in exact time. This statement may enable us to form a correct idea of the dance, which the women of Israel performed under the direction of Miriam, on the banks of the Red Sea. The prophetess, we are told, “took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dances.” She led the dance, while they imitated her steps, which were not conducted according to a set, well-known form, as in this country, but extemporaneous. The conjecture of Mr. Harmer is extremely probable, that David did not dance alone before the Lord, when he brought up the ark, but, as being the highest in rank, and more skilful than any of the people, he led the religious dance of the males.

DANIEL was a descendant of the kings of Judah, and is said to have been born at Upper Bethoron, in the territory of Ephraim. He was carried away captive to Babylon when he was about eighteen or twenty years of age, in the year 606 before the Christian æra. He was placed in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, and was afterward raised to situations of great rank and power, both in the empire of Babylon and of Persia. He lived to the end of the captivity, but being then nearly ninety years old, it is most probable that he did not return to Judea. It is generally believed that he died at Susa, soon after his last vision, which is dated in the third year of the reign of Cyrus. Daniel seems to have been the only prophet who enjoyed a great share of worldly prosperity; but amidst the corruptions of a licentious court he preserved his virtue and integrity inviolate, and no danger or temptation could divert him from the worship of the true God. The book of Daniel is a mixture of history and prophecy: in the first six chapters is recorded a variety of events which occurred in the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius; and, in particular, the second chapter contains Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream concerning the four great successive monarchies, and the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which dream God enabled Daniel to interpret. In the last six chapters we have a series of prophecies, revealed at different times, extending from the days of Daniel to the general resurrection. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman empires, are all particularly described under appropriate characters; and it is expressly declared that the last of them was to be divided into ten lesser kingdoms; the time at which Christ was to appear is precisely fixed; the rise and fall of antichrist, and the duration of his power, are exactly determined; and the future restoration of the Jews, the victory of Christ over all his enemies, and the universal prevalence of true religion, are distinctly foretold, as being to precede the consummation of that stupendous plan of God, which “was laid before the foundation of the world,” and reaches to its dissolution. Part of this book is written in the Chaldaic language, namely, from the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of the seventh chapter; these chapters relate chiefly to the affairs of Babylon, and it is probable that some passages were taken from the public registers. This book abounds with the most exalted sentiments of piety and devout gratitude; its style is clear, simple, and concise; and many of its prophecies are delivered in terms so plain and circumstantial, that some unbelievers have asserted, in opposition to the strongest evidence, that they were written after the events which they describe had taken place. With respect to the genuineness and authenticity of the hook of Daniel, there is abundance both of external and internal evidence; indeed all that can well be had or desired in a case of this nature: not only the testimony of the whole Jewish church and nation, who have constantly received this book as canonical, but of Josephus particularly, who recommends him as the greatest of the prophets; of the Jewish Targums and Talmuds, which frequently cite and appeal to his authority; of St. Paul and St. John, who have copied many of his prophecies; and of our Saviour himself, who cites his words, and styles him, “Daniel the prophet.” Nor is the internal less powerful and convincing than the external evidence; for the language, the style, the manner of writing, and all other internal marks and characters, are perfectly agreeable to that age; and finally he appears plainly and 289undeniably to have been a prophet by the exact accomplishment of his prophecies.

DARIUS was the name of several princes in history, some of whom are mentioned in Scripture.

1. Darius the Mede, spoken of in Daniel v, 31; ix, 1; xi, 1, &c, was the son of Astyages, king of the Medes, and brother to Mandane, the mother of Cyrus, and to Amyit, the mother of Evil-merodach, and grandmother of Belshazzar. Darius the Mede, therefore, was uncle by the mother’s side to Evil-merodach and Cyrus. The Septuagint, in Daniel vii, give him the name of Artaxerxes; the thirteenth, or apocryphal chapter of Daniel, calls him Astyages; and Xenophon designates him by the name of Cyaxares. He succeeded Belshazzar, king of Babylon, his nephew’s son, or his sister’s grandson, in the year of the world, 3448, according to Calmet, or in 3468, according to Usher. Daniel does not inform us of any previous war between them; but the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah supply this deficiency. Isa. xiii, xiv, xlv, xlvi, xlvii; Jer. l, li.

2. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, has been supposed by some, on the authority of Archbishop Usher and Calmet, to be the Ahasuerus of Scripture, and the husband of Esther. But Dr. Prideaux thinks, that Ahasuerus was Artaxerxes Longimanus. This prince recovered Babylon after a siege of twenty months. This city, which had been formerly the capital of the east, revolted from Persia, taking advantage of the revolutions that happened, first at the death of Cambyses, and afterward on the massacre of the Magi. The Babylonians employed four years in preparations, and when they thought that their city was furnished with provisions for a long time, they raised the standard of rebellion. Darius levied an army in great haste, and besieged Babylon. The Babylonians shut themselves up within their walls, whose height and thickness secured them from assault; and as they had nothing to fear but famine, they assembled all their women and children, and strangled them, each reserving only his most beloved wife, and one servant. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, xlvii, 7–9. Some believe that the Jews were either expelled by the Babylonians, as being too much in the interest of Darius; or that, in obedience to the frequent admonitions of the prophets, they quitted that city when they saw the people determined to rebel, Isa. xlviii, 20; Jer. l, 8; li, 6–9; Zech. xi, 6, 7. Darius lay twenty months before Babylon, without making any considerable progress; but, at length, Zopyrus, one of his generals, obtained possession of the city by stratagem. Darius ordered the hundred gates of brass to be taken away, according to the prediction of Jeremiah, li, 58, “Thus saith the Lord, The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire, and the people shall labour in vain.” This is related in Herodotus.

3. Darius Codomanus was of the royal family of Persia, but very remote from the crown. He was in a low condition, when Bagoas, the eunuch, who had procured the destruction of two kings, Ochus and Arses, placed him on the throne. His true name was Codoman, and he did not take that of Darius till he was king. He was descended from Darius Nothus, whose son, Ostanes, was father to Arsames, that begat Codomanus. He was at first only a courier to the emperor Ochus. But one day when he was at this prince’s army, one of their enemies challenged the bravest of the Persians. Codomanus offered himself for the combat, and overcame the challenger, and was made governor of Armenia. From this situation, Bagoas placed him on the throne of Persia. Alexander the Great invaded the Persian empire, and defeated Darius in three successive battles. After the third battle, Darius fled toward Media, in hopes of raising another army. At Ecbatana, the capital of Media, he gathered the remains of his forces, and some new levies. Alexander having wintered at Babylon and Persepolis, took the field in search of Darius, who quitted Ecbatana, with an intention of retreating into Bactria; but, changing his resolution, Darius stopped short, and determined to hazard a battle, though his army at this time consisted only of forty thousand men. While he was preparing for this conflict, Bessus, governor of Bactria, and Narbazanes, a grandee of Persia, seized him, loaded him with chains, forced him into a covered chariot, and fled, carrying him with them toward Bactria. If Alexander pursued them, they intended to purchase their peace by delivering Darius into his hands; but if not, to kill him, seize the crown, and renew the war. Eight days after their departure, Alexander arrived at Ecbatana, and set out in pursuit of them, which he continued for eleven days: at length he stopped at Rages, in Media, despairing to overtake Darius. Thence he went into Parthia, where he learned what had happened to that unfortunate prince. After a precipitate march of many days, he overtook the traitors, who, seeing themselves pressed, endeavoured to compel Darius to get upon horseback, and save himself with them; but he refusing, they stabbed him in several places, and left him expiring in his chariot. He was dead when Alexander arrived, who could not forbear weeping at so sad a spectacle. Alexander covered Darius with his own cloak, and sent him to Sisygambis his wife, that she might bury him in the tombs of the kings of Persia. Thus were verified the prophecies of Daniel, viii, who had foretold the destruction of the Persian monarchy, under the symbol of a ram, which butted with its horns westward, northward, and southward, and which nothing could resist; but a goat which had a very large horn between his eyes, and which denoted Alexander the Great, came from the west, and overran the world without touching the earth; springing forward with impetuosity, the goat ran against the ram with all his force, attacked him with fury, struck him, broke his two horns, trampled him under foot, and no one could rescue the ram. Nothing can be clearer than these prophecies.

290DARKNESS, the absence of light. “Darkness was upon the face of the deep,” Gen. i, 2; that is, the chaos was immersed in thick darkness, because light was withheld from it. The most terrible darkness was that brought on Egypt as a plague; it was so thick as to be, as it were, palpable; so horrible, that no one durst stir out of his place; and so lasting, that it endured three days and three nights, Exod. x, 21, 22; Wisdom xvii, 2, 3. The darkness at our Saviour’s death began at the sixth hour, or noon, and ended at the third hour, or three o’clock in the afternoon. Thus it lasted almost the whole time he was on the cross; compare Matt. xxvii, 45, with John xix, 14, and Mark xv, 25. Origen, Maldonatus, Erasmus, Vatablus, and others, were of opinion that this darkness covered Judea only; which is sometimes called the whole earth; that is, the whole country. Chrysostom, Euthymius, Theophylact, and others, thought it extended over a hemisphere. Origen says it was caused by a thick mist, which precluded the sight of the sun. That it was preternatural is certain, for, the moon being at full, a natural eclipse of the sun was impossible. Darkness is sometimes used metaphorically for death. “The land of darkness” is the grave, Job x, 22; Psalm cvii, 10. It is also used to denote misfortunes and calamities: “A day of darkness” is a day of affliction, Esther xi, 8. “Let that day be darkness; let darkness stain it,”--let it be reckoned among the unfortunate days, Job iii, 4, 5. The expressions, “I will cover the heavens with darkness;” “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,” &c, signify very great political calamities, involving the overthrow of kings, princes, and nobles, represented by the luminaries of heaven. In a moral sense, darkness denotes ignorance and vice; hence “the children of light,” in opposition to “the children of darkness,” are the righteous distinguished from the wicked.

DAVID, the celebrated king of Israel, was the youngest son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, and was born 1085 years before Christ. The following is an abstract of his history: He was chosen of God to be king of Israel, and at his command was anointed to this dignity by the hands of Samuel, a venerable prophet, in the room of Saul; who had been rejected for his disobedience to the divine orders, in feloniously seizing, to his own use the prey of an enemy, which God, the supreme King of Israel, had devoted to destruction. He was introduced to court as a man expert in music, a singularly valiant man, a man of war, prudent in matters, of a comely person, and one favoured of the Lord. By his skill in music, he relieved Saul under a melancholy indisposition that had seized him, was highly beloved by his royal master, and made one of his guards. In a war with the Philistines he accepted the challenge of a gigantic champion, who defied the armies of Israel, and being skilful at the sling, he slew him with a stone, returned safely with his head, and thus secured to his prince an easy victory over his country’s enemies. The reputation he gained, by this glorious action, raised an incurable jealousy and resentment against him, in the mind of the king his master; who made two unsuccessful attempts to murder him. In his exalted station, and amidst the dangers that encompassed him, he behaved with singular prudence, so that he was in high esteem both in the court and camp. The modesty and prudence of his behaviour, and his approved courage and resolution, gained him the confidence and friendship of Jonathan, the king’s eldest son, “who loved him as his own soul,” became his advocate with his father, and obtained from him a promise, confirmed by an oath, that he would no more attempt to destroy him. But Saul’s jealousy returned by a fresh victory David gained over the Philistines; who, finding the king was determined to seek his life, retired from court, and was dismissed in peace by Jonathan, after a solemn renewal of their friendship, to provide for his own safety. In this state of banishment, there resorted to him companies of men, who were uneasy in their circumstances, oppressed by their creditors, or discontented with Saul’s tyrannical government, to the number of six hundred men. These he kept in the most excellent order, and by their valour he gained signal advantages for his country; but never employed them in rebellion against the king, or in a single instance to distress or subvert his government. On the contrary such was the veneration he paid him, and such the generosity of his temper, that though it was thrice in his power to have him cut off, he spared him, and was determined never to destroy him, whom God had constituted the king of Israel. His friendship with Jonathan, the king’s son, was a friendship of strict honour, for he never seduced him from his allegiance and filial duty. Being provoked by a churlish farmer, who evil treated and abused his messengers, he, in the warmth of his temper, swore he would destroy him and his family; but was immediately pacified by the address and prudence of a wife, of whom the wretch was unworthy: her he sent in peace and honour to her family, and blessed for her advice, and keeping him from avenging himself with his own hand. Being forced to banish himself into an enemy’s country, he was faithful to the prince who protected him: and, at the same time, mindful of the interest of his own nation, he cut off many of those who had harassed and plundered his fellow subjects. When pressed by the king, into whose dominions he retired, to join in a war against his own country and father-in-law, he prudently gave him such an answer as his situation required; neither promising the aid demanded of him, nor tying up his hands from serving his own prince, and the army that fought under him; only assuring him in general, that he had never done any thing that could give him just reason to think he would refuse to assist him against his enemies. Upon the death of Saul, he cut off the Amalekite who came to make a merit of having slain him; and by the immediate direction of God, who had promised him the succession, went up to Hebron, where, on a free election, he was 291anointed king over the house of Judah; and after about a seven years’ contest, he was unanimously chosen king by all the tribes of Israel, “according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.” As king of Israel, he administered justice and judgment to all his people, was a prince of courage, and great military prudence and conduct; had frequent wars with the neighbouring nations, to which he was generally forced by their invading his dominions, and plundering his subjects. Against them he never lost a battle; he never besieged a city without taking it; nor, as for any thing that can be proved, used any severities against those he conquered, beyond what the law of arms allowed, his own safety required, or the cruelties of his enemies rendered just, by way of retaliation; enriching his people by the spoils he took, and providing large stores of every thing necessary for the magnificent temple he intended to erect, in honour of the God of Israel. Having rescued Jerusalem out of the hands of the Jebusites, he made it the capital of his kingdom, and the place of his residence; and being willing to honour it with the presence of the ark of God, he brought it to Jerusalem in triumph, and divesting himself of his royal robes, out of reverence to God, he clothed himself in the habit of his ministers, and with them expressed his joy by dancing and music; contemned only by one haughty woman; whom, as a just punishment of her insolence, he seems ever after to have separated from his bed. Though his crimes were henious, and highly aggravated, in the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba, he patiently endured reproof, humbly submitted to the punishment appointed him, deeply repented, and obtained mercy and forgiveness from God, though not without some severe marks of his displeasure, for the grievous offences of which he had been guilty. A rebellion was raised against him by his son Absalom. When forced by it to depart from Jerusalem, a circumstance most pathetically described by the sacred historian, he prevented the just punishment of Shimei, a wretch who cursed and stoned him. When restored to his throne, he spared him upon his submission, and would not permit a single man to be put to death in Israel upon account of this treason. He, with a noble confidence, made the commander of the rebel forces general of his own army, in the room of Joab, whom he intended to call to an account for murder and other crimes. After this, when obliged, by the command of God, to give up some of Saul’s family to justice, for the murder of the Gibeonites, he spared Mephibosheth, Micah, and his family, the male descendants of Saul and Jonathan, who alone could have any pretence to dispute the crown with him, and surrendered only Saul’s bastard children, and those of his daughter by Adriel, who had no right or possible claim to the throne, and could never give him any uneasiness in the possession of it; and thus showed his inviolable regard for his oaths, his tenderness to Saul, and the warmth of his gratitude and friendship to Jonathan. In the close of his life, and in the near prospect of death, to demonstrate his love of justice, he charged Solomon to punish with death Joab, for the base murder of two great men, whom he assassinated under the pretence of peace and friendship. To this catalogue of his noble actions must be added, that he gave the most shining and indisputable proofs of an undissembled reverence for, and sincere piety to, God; ever obeying the direction of his prophets, worshipping him alone, to the exclusion of all idols, throughout the whole of his life, and making the wisest settlement to perpetuate the worship of the same God, through all succeeding generations.

To this abstract a few miscellaneous remarks may be added.

1. When David is called “the man after God’s own heart,” a phrase which profane persons have often perverted, his general character, and not every particular of it, is to be understood as approved by God; and especially his faithful and undeviating adherence to the true religion, from which he never deviated into any act of idolatry.

2. He was chosen to accomplish to their full extent the promises made to Abraham to give to his seed, the whole country from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. He had succeeded to a kingdom distracted with civil dissension, environed on every side by powerful and victorious enemies, without a capital, almost without an army, without any bond of union between the tribes. He left a compact and united state, stretching from the frontier of Egypt to the foot of Lebanon, from the Euphrates to the sea. He had crushed the power of the Philistines, subdued or curbed all the adjacent kingdoms: he had formed a lasting and important alliance with the great city of Tyre. He had organized an immense disposable force; for every month 24,000 men, furnished in rotation by the tribes, appeared in arms, and were trained as the standing militia of the country. At the head of his army were officers of consummate experience, and, what was more highly esteemed in the warfare of the time, extraordinary personal activity, strength, and valour. The Hebrew nation owed the long peace of Solomon the son’s reign to the bravery and wisdom of the father.

3. As a conqueror he was a type of Christ, and the country “from the river to the ends of the earth,” was also the prophetic type of Christ’s dominion over the whole earth.

4. His inspired psalms not only place him among the most eminent prophets; but have rendered him the leader of the devotions of good men, in all ages. The hymns of David excel no less in sublimity and tenderness of expression than in loftiness and purity of religious sentiment. In comparison with them the sacred poetry of all other nations sinks into mediocrity. They have embodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion, that they have entered with unquestioned propriety into the ritual of the higher and more perfect religion of Christ. The songs which cheered the solitude of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the 292Hebrew people as they wound along the glens or the hill sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world, in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America or the sands of Africa. How many human hearts have these inspired songs softened, purified, exalted! Of how many wretched beings have they been the secret consolation! On how many communities have they drawn down the blessings of Divine providence, by bringing the affections into unison with their deep devotional fervour, and leading to a constant and explicit recognition of the government, rights, and mercies of God!

DAY. The Hebrews, in conformity with the Mosaic law, reckoned the day from evening to evening. The natural day, that is, the portion of time from sunrise to sunset, was divided by the Hebrews, as it is now by the Arabians, into six unequal parts. These divisions were as follows:--1. The break of day. This portion of time was, at a recent period, divided into two parts, in imitation of the Persians; the first of which began when the eastern, the second, when the western, division of the horizon was illuminated. The authors of the Jerusalem Talmud divided it into four parts; the first of which was called in Hebrew , which occurs in Psalm xxii, 1, and corresponds to the phrase, a , in the New Testament, Mark xvi, 2; John xx, 1. 2. The morning or sunrise. 3. The heat of the day. This began about nine o’clock, Gen. xviii, 1; 1 Sam. xi, 11. 4. Midday. 5. The cool of the day; literally, the wind of the day. This expression is grounded on the fact, that a wind commences blowing regularly a few hours before sunset, and continues till evening, Gen. iii, 8. 6. The evening. This was divided into two parts, ; the first of which began, according to the Caraites and Samaritans, at sunset, the second, when it began to grow dark. But, according to the rabbins, the first commenced just before sunset, the second, precisely at sunset. The Arabians agree with the Caraites and Samaritans; and in this way the Hebrews appear to have computed, previous to the captivity.

The mention of , hours, occurs first in Daniel iii, 6, 15; v, 5. They were first measured by gnomons, which merely indicated the meridian; afterward, by the hour-watch, sa; and subsequently still, by the clepsydra, or instrument for measuring time by means of water. The hour-watch or dial, otherwise called the sun-dial, is mentioned in the reign of King Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx, 9, 10; Isaiah xxxviii, 8. Its being called “the sundial of Ahaz” renders it probable that Ahaz first introduced it from Babylon; whence, also, Anaximenes, the Milesian, brought the first skiathericon into Greece. This instrument was of no use during the night, nor indeed during a cloudy day. In consequence of this defect, the clepsydra was invented, which was used in Persia as late as the seventeenth century in its simplest form. The clepsydra was a small circular vessel, constructed of thinly-beaten copper or brass, and having a small perforation through the bottom. It was placed in another vessel, filled with water. The diameter of the hole in the bottom of the clepsydra was such, that it filled with water in three hours, and sunk. It was necessary that there should be a servant to tend it, who should take it up when it had sunk, pour out the water, and place it again empty on the surface of the water in the vase.

The hours of principal note in the course of the day were the third, the sixth, and the ninth. These hours, it would seem, were consecrated by Daniel to prayer, Dan. vi, 10; Acts ii, 15; iii, 1; x, 9. The day was divided into twelve hours, which, of course, varied in length, being shorter in the winter and longer in the summer, John xi, 9. In the winter, therefore, the clepsydras were so constructed that the water might sink them more rapidly. The hours were numbered from the rising of the sun, so that, at the season of the equinox, the third corresponded to the ninth of our reckoning; the sixth, to our twelfth; and the ninth, to three o’clock in the afternoon. At other seasons of the year, it is necessary to observe the time when the sun rises, and reduce the hours to our time accordingly. We observe, therefore, that the sun in Palestine, at the summer solstice, rises at five of our time, and sets about seven. At the winter solstice, it rises about seven, and sets about five.

Before the captivity, the night was divided into three watches. The first, which continued till midnight, was denominated the commencing or first watch, Lam. ii, 19. The second was denominated the middle watch, and continued from midnight till the crowing of the cock. The third, called the morning watch, extended from the second to the rising of the sun. These divisions and names appear to have owed their origin to the watches of the Levites in the tabernacle and temple, Exod. xiv, 24; 1 Sam. xi, 11. In the time of Christ, however, the night, in imitation of the Romans, was divided into four watches. According to the English mode of reckoning they were as follows: 1. The evening, from twilight to nine o’clock. 2. The midnight, from nine to twelve. 3. The cock crowing, from twelve to three. 4. From three o’clock till daybreak. A day is used in the prophetic Scripture for a year: “I have appointed thee each day for a year,” Ezek. iv, 6. See Cock.

DEACON, from the Greek word d, in its proper and primitive sense, denotes a servant who attends his master, waits on him at table, and is always near his person to obey his orders, which was accounted a more creditable kind of service than that which is imported by the word d a slave; but this distinction is not usually observed in the New Testament. Our Lord makes use of both terms in Matt. xx, 26, 27, though they are not distinctly marked in our translation: “Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your deacon; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” The appointment of deacons in the first Christian church is distinctly recorded, 293Acts vi, 1–16. The number of disciples having greatly increased in Jerusalem, the Greeks, or Hellenistic Jews, began to murmur against the Hebrews, complaining that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution of the church’s bounty. The twelve Apostles, who hitherto had discharged the different offices of Apostle, presbyter, and deacon, upon the principle that the greater office always includes the less, now convened the church, and said unto them, “It is not reasonable that we should leave the ministration of the word of God, and serve tables: look ye out, therefore, among yourselves, seven men of good report, full of the Holy Ghost, and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.” And the saying pleased the whole multitude; and they (the multitude) chose Stephen, and six others, whom they set before the Apostles, &c.

The qualifications of deacons are stated by the Apostle Paul, 1 Tim. iii, 8–12. There were also, in the primitive churches females invested with this office, who were termed deaconesses. Of this number was Phœbe, a member of the church of Cenchrea, mentioned by St. Paul, Rom. xvi, 1. “They served the church,” says Calmet, “in those offices which the deacons could not themselves exercise, visiting those of their own sex in sickness, or when imprisoned for the faith. They were persons of advanced age, when chosen; and appointed to the office by imposition of hands.” It is probably of these deaconesses that the Apostle speaks, where he describes the ministering widows, 1 Tim. v, 5–10.

DEAD. See Burial.

Dead, Mournings for the. The ancient Israelites, in imitation of the Heathen, from whom they borrowed the practice, frequently cut themselves with knives and lancets, scratched their faces, or pricked certain parts of their bodies with needles. These superstitious practices were expressly forbidden in their law: “Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.” The bereaved Greeks tore, cut off, and sometimes shaved, their hair; they reckoned it a duty which they owed to the dead, to deprive their heads of the greatest part of their honours, or, in the language of Scripture, made a baldness between their eyes. The same custom prevailed among the ancient Persians, and the neighbouring states. When the patriarch Job was informed of the death of his children, and the destruction of his property, he arose and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshipped; and in the prophecies of Jeremiah, we read of eighty men who were going to lament the desolations of Jerusalem, having their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, in direct violation of the divine law, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord, Jer. xii, 5. Shaving, however, was, on some occasions, a sign of joy; and to let the hair grow long, the practice of mourners, or persons in affliction. Joseph shaved himself before he went into the palace, Gen. xli, 14; and Mephibosheth let his hair grow during the time David was banished from Jerusalem, but shaved himself on his return. In ordinary sorrows they only neglected their hair, or suffered it to hang down loose upon their shoulders; in more poignant grief they cut it off; but in a sudden and violent paroxysm, they plucked it off with their hands. Such a violent expression of sorrow is exemplified in the conduct of Ezra, which he thus describes: “And when I heard this thing I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head, and of my beard, and sat down astonied,” Ezra ix, 3. The Greeks, and other nations around them, expressed the violence of their sorrow in the same way; for in Homer, Ulysses and his companions, bewailing the death of Elpenor, howled and plucked off their hair. Mourners withdrew as much as possible from the world; they abstained from banquets and entertainments; they banished from their houses as unsuitable to their circumstances, and even painful to their feelings, musical instruments of every kind, and whatever was calculated to excite pleasure, or that wore an air of mirth and gaiety. Thus did the king of Persia testify his sorrow for the decree, into which his wily courtiers had betrayed him, and which, without the miraculous interposition of Heaven, had proved fatal to his favourite minister: “Then the king went to his palace, and spent the night fasting; neither were instruments of music brought before him,” Dan. vi, 18.

2. Oriental mourners divested themselves of all ornaments, and laid aside their jewels, gold, and every thing rich and splendid in their dress. This proof of humiliation and submission Jehovah required of his offending people in the wilderness: “Therefore, now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb,” Exodus xxxiii, 5, 6. Long after the time of Moses, that rebellious nation again received a command of similar import: “Strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins,” Isaiah xxxii, 11. The garments of the mourner were always black. Progne, having notice of Philomela’s death, lays aside her robes, beaming with a profusion of gold, and appears in sable vestments; and Althæa, when her brethren were slain by Meleager, exchanged her glittering robes for black:--

These sable vestments differed from their ordinary dress, not only in colour, but also in value, being made of cheap and coarse stuff, as appears from these lines of Terence:--

“We found her busy at the loom, in a cheap mourning habit, which she wore I suppose for the old woman’s death.” In Judea, the mourner was clothed in sackcloth of hair, and by consequence, 294in sable robes; and penitents, by assuming it, seemed to confess that their guilt exposed them to death. Some of the eastern nations, in modern times, bury in linen; but Chardin informs us, that others still retain the use of sackcloth for that purpose. To sit in sackcloth and ashes, was a frequent expression of mourning in the oriental regions; and persons overwhelmed with grief, and unable to sustain the weight of their calamities, often threw themselves upon the earth, and rolled in the dust; and the more dirty the ground was, the better it served to defile them, and to express their sorrow and dejection. In this way Tamar signified her distress, after being dishonoured by Amnon, “She put ashes on her head;” and when Mordecai understood that the doom of his nation was sealed, he “rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes.” Our Lord alludes to the same custom, in that denunciation: “Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, in sackcloth and ashes,” Matt. xi, 21. Intimately connected with this, is the custom of putting dust upon the head. When the armies of Israel were defeated before Ai, “Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.” The mourner sometimes laid his hands upon his head; for the prophet, expostulating with his people, predicts their humiliation in these words: “Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head; for the Lord hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them,” Jer. ii, 37. In both these cases, the head of the mourner was uncovered; but they sometimes adopted the opposite custom, and covered their heads in great distress, or when they were loaded with disgrace and infamy.

3. To cover the lips was a very ancient sign of mourning; and it continues to be practised among the Jews of Barbary to this day. When they return from the grave to the house of the deceased, the chief mourner receives them with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth, in imitation of the manner in which the face of the dead is covered; and by this the mourner is said to testify that he was ready to die for his friend. Muffled in this way, the mourner goes for seven days, during which the rest of his friends come twice every twenty-four hours to pray with him. This allusion is perhaps involved in the charge which Ezekiel received when his wife died, to abstain from the customary forms of mourning: “Forbear to cry; make no mourning for the dead; bind the tire of thy head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men,” Ezekiel xxiv, 17.

4. Sitting on the ground was a posture which denoted severe distress. Thus the prophet represents the elders of Israel, after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of those whom the sword had spared: “The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence; they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground,” Lam. ii, 10. Judea is represented on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, as a solitary female in this very posture of sorrow and captivity sitting upon the ground. It is remarkable, that we find Judea represented as a sorrowful woman sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet, where the same calamity which was recorded on the medals of these Roman emperors is foretold: “And she being desolate shall sit upon the ground,” Isaiah iii, 26.

5. Chardin informs us that when the king of Persia dies, his physicians and astrologers lose their places, and are excluded from the court; the first, because they could not cure their sovereign, and the last, because they did not give previous notice of his death. This whimsical custom he supposes has descended to modern times from a very remote antiquity; and to have been the true reason that Daniel was absent when Belshazzar saw the hand writing his doom on the wall. If the conjecture of that intelligent traveller be well founded, the venerable prophet had been forced by the established etiquette of the court to retire from the management of public affairs at the death of Nebuchadnezzar; and had remained in a private station for twenty-three years, neglected or forgotten, till the awful occurrence of that memorable night rendered his assistance necessary, and brought him again into public notice. This accounts in a very satisfactory manner, as well for Belshazzar’s ignorance of Daniel, as for the recollection of Nitocris, the queen-mother, who had long known his character and abilities during the reign of her husband. This solution of the difficulty is at least ingenious.

6. It was a custom among the Jews to visit the sepulchres of their deceased friends three days; for so long they supposed their spirits hovered about them; but when once they perceived their visage begin to change, as it would in that time in those warm countries, all hopes of a return to life were then at an end. But it appears from an incident in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus, that in Judea they were accustomed to visit the graves of their deceased relations after the third day, merely to lament their loss, and give vent to their grief. If this had not been a common practice, the people that came to comfort the sisters of Lazarus would not so readily have concluded, when Mary, on the fourth day, went hastily out to meet her Saviour, “She goeth to the grave to weep there.” The Turkish women continue to follow this custom: they go before sunrising on Friday, the stated day of their worship, to the grave of the deceased, where, with many tears and lamentations, they sprinkle their monuments with water and flowers.

DEAD SEA. This was anciently called the Sea of the Plain, Deut. iii, 17; iv, 49, from its situation in the great hollow or plain of the Jordan; the Salt Sea, Deut. iii, 17; Joshua xv, 5, from the extreme saltness of its waters; 295and the East Sea, Ezek. xlvii, 18; Joel ii, 20, from its situation relative to Judea, and in contradistinction to the West Sea, or Mediterranean. It is likewise called by Josephus, and by the Greek and Latin writers generally, Lacus Asphaltites, from the bitumen found in it; and the Dead Sea, its more frequent modern appellation, from a tradition, commonly though erroneously received, that no living creature could exist in its saline and sulphureous waters. It is at present known in Syria by the names of Almotanah and Bahar Loth: and occupies what may be considered as the southern extremity of the vale of Jordan; forming, in that direction, the western boundary to the Holy Land. The Dead Sea is about seventy miles in length, and twenty in breadth at its broadest part; having, like the Caspian, no visible communication with the ocean. Its depth seems to be altogether unknown; nor does it appear that a boat has ever navigated its surface. Toward its southern extremity, however, in a contracted part of the lake, is a ford, about six miles over, made use of by the Arabs: in the middle of which they report the water to be warm; indicating the presence of warm springs beneath. In general, toward the shore, it is shallow; and rises and falls with the seasons, and the quantity of water carried into it by seven streams, which fall into this their common receptacle, the chief of which is the Jordan.

The water now covering these ruins occupies what was formerly the vale of Siddim; a rich and fruitful valley, in which stood the five cities, called the cities of the plain, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela or Zoar: the four first of which were destroyed, while the latter, being “a little city,” was preserved at the intercession of Lot; to which he fled for refuge from the impending catastrophe, and where he remained in safety during its accomplishment.

The specific gravity of the waters of the Dead Sea is supposed to have been much exaggerated by the ancient writers, but their statements are now proved to be by no means very wide of the truth. Pliny says, that no living bodies would sink in it; and Strabo, that persons who went into it were borne up to their middle. Van Egmont and Heyman state, that, on swimming to some distance from the shore, they found themselves, to their great surprise, lifted up by the water. “When I had swam to some distance,” says the latter, “I endeavoured to sink to the bottom, but could not; for the water kept me continually up, and would certainly have thrown me upon my face, had I not put forth all the strength I was master of, to keep myself in a perpendicular posture; so that I walked in the sea as if I had trod on firm ground, without having occasion to make any of the motions necessary in treading fresh water; and when I was swimming, I was obliged to keep my legs the greatest part of the time out of the water. My fellow traveller was agreeably surprised to find that he could swim here, having never learned. But this proceeded from the gravity of the water, as this certainly does from the extraordinary quantity of salt in it.” Mr. Joliffe says, he found it very little more buoyant than other seas, but he did not go out of his depth. “The descent of the beach,” he says, “is so gently gradual, that I must have waded above a hundred yards to get completely out of my depth, and the impatience of the Arabians would not allow of time sufficient for this.” Captain Mangles says: “The water is as bitter and as buoyant as the people have reported. Those of our party who could not swim, floated on its surface like corks. On dipping the head in, the eyes smarted dreadfully.” With regard to the agents employed in this catastrophe, there might seem reason to suppose that volcanic phenomena had some share in producing it; but Chateaubriand’s remark is deserving of attention. “I cannot,” he says, “coincide in opinion with those who suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have seen Vesuvius, Solfatara, Monte Nuovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the Azores, the Mamalif opposite to Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of Auvergne; and remarked in all of them the same characters; that is to say, mountains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which exhibited incontestable proofs of the agency of fire.” After noticing the very different shape and position of the Dead Sea, he adds: “Bitumen, warm springs, and phosphoric stones are found, it is true, in the mountains of Arabia; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur, and asphaltos is not sufficient to attest the anterior existence of a volcano.” The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt the idea of Professors Michaëlis and Busching, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built upon a mine of bitumen; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the cities sunk in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brun ingeniously suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in flames by the fire of heaven. We learn from the Mosaic account, that the Vale of Siddim, which is now occupied by the Dead Sea, was full of “slime pits,” or pits of bitumen. Pococke says: “It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the water, and comes ashore after windy weather; the Arabs gather it up, and it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines, and is thought to have been a very great ingredient in the bitumen used in embalming the bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths, and has an ill smell when burnt. It is probable that there are subterraneous fires, that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the sea, where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the motion of the water occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable, that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns only to a white stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch; so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and 296that this bitumen boils up out of it.” To give force to this last conjecture, however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whether bitumen is capable of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of fire. The stone in question is the black feited limestone, used at Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is owing to a strong impregnation of sulphuretted hydrogen. If the buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with quarries of which the neighbouring mountains abound, they would be easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The Scriptural account, however, is explicit, that “the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven;” which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which seems referable to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very materials, as it were, of this awful visitation still at hand in the neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of thunder storms, directed by the hand of offended Heaven. Captains Irby and Mangles collected, on the southern coast, lumps of nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small hen’s egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought down by the rain: “their great deposit must be sought for,” they say, “in the cliff.” These cliffs then were probably swept by the lightnings, and their flaming masses poured in a deluge of fire upon the plain.

DEBORAH, a prophetess, wife of Lapidoth, judged the Israelites, and dwelt under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, Judges iv, 4, 5. She sent for Barak, directed him to attack Sisera, and, in the name of God, promised him victory; but Barak refusing to go, unless she went with him, she told him, that the honour of this expedition would be given to a woman, and not to him. After the victory, Deborah and Barak sung a fine thanksgiving song, the composition probably of Deborah alone, which is preserved, Judges v.

DEBTS. In nothing, perhaps, do the Israelitish laws deviate so far from our own, as in regard to matters of debt. Imprisonment was unknown among the Hebrews, who were equally free from those long and expensive modes of procedure with which we are acquainted, for the recovery of debts. Their laws in this respect were simple, but efficient. Where pledges were lodged with a creditor for the payment of a debt, which was not discharged, the creditor was allowed to appropriate the pledge to his own benefit, without any interposition of a magistrate, and to keep it as rightfully as if it had been bought with the sum which had been lent for it. But, beside the pledge, every Israelite had various pieces of property, on which execution for debt might readily be made; as (1.) His hereditary land, the produce of which might be attached till the year of jubilee: (2.) His houses, which, with the sole exception of those of the Levites, might be sold in perpetuity, Lev. xxv, 29, 30: (3.) His cattle, household furniture, and ornaments, appear also liable to be taken in execution. See Job xxiv, 3; Proverbs xxii, 27. From Deut. xv, 1–11, we see that no debt could be exacted from a poor man in the seventh year; because the land lying fallow, he had no income whence to pay it: (4.) The person of the debtor, who might be sold, along with his wife and children, if he had any. See Lev. xxv, 39; Job xxiv, 9; 2 Kings iv, 1; Isaiah l, 1; Nehemiah v. We have no intimation, in the writings of Moses, that suretyship was practised among the Hebrews in cases of debt. In the Proverbs of Solomon, however, there are many admonitions respecting it. Where this warranty was given, the surety was treated with the same severity as if he had been the actual debtor; and if he could not pay, his very bed might be taken from under him, Prov. xxii, 27. There is a reference to the custom observed in contracting this obligation in Prov. xvii, 18: “A man void of understanding striketh hands,” &c; and also in Prov. xxii, 26: “Be not thou one of them that strike hands,” &c. It is to be observed that the hand was given, not to the creditor, but to the debtor, in the creditor’s presence. By this act the surety intimated that he became in a legal sense one with the debtor, and rendered himself liable to pay the debt.

2. We have above noticed the practice of lending on pledge; but as this was liable to considerable abuse, the following judicial regulations were adopted: (1.) The creditor was not allowed to enter the house of the debtor to fetch the pledge, but was obliged to stand without the door, and wait till it was brought to him, Deut. xxiv, 10, 11. This law was wisely designed to restrain avaricious and unprincipled persons from taking advantage of their poor brethren in choosing their own pledges. (2.) The upper garment, which served by night for a blanket, Exod. xxii, 25, 26; Deut. xxiv, 12, 13, and mills and millstones, if taken in pledge, were to be restored to the owner before sunset. The reason of this law was, that these articles were indispensable to the comfortable subsistence of the poor; and for the same reason, it is likely that it extended to all necessary utensils. Such a restoration was no loss to the creditor; for he had it in his power at last, by the aid of summary justice, to lay hold of the whole property of the debtor; and if he had none, of his person: and, in the event of non-payment, as before stated, to take him for a bond slave.

DECALOGUE, the ten principal commandments, Exod. xx, 1, &c, from the Greek de ten, and words. The Jews call these precepts, the ten words.

DECAPOLIS, a country in Palestine, so called, because it contained ten principal cities; some situated on the west, and some on the east side of Jordan, Matt. iv, 25; Mark v, 20.

DEDICATION, a religious ceremony, whereby any person or thing was set apart to the service of God, and the purposes of religion. 297Dedications of persons, temples, and houses, were frequent among the Jews. See Consecration.

DEFILEMENT. Under the law, many were those blemishes of person and conduct, which were considered as defilements: some were voluntary, others involuntary; some were inevitable, and the effect of nature itself, others arose from personal transgression. Under the Gospel, defilements are those of the heart, of the mind, the temper, and conduct. The ceremonial uncleannesses of the law are superseded as religious rites; though many of them claim attention as usages of health, decency, and civility.

DEGREES. Psalms of Degrees is a name given to fifteen psalms, from the cxx, to the cxxxiv, inclusive. The Hebrew text calls them a song of ascents. Junius and Tremellius translate the Hebrew a song of excellences, or an excellent song, from the excellent matter they contain. Some call them psalms of elevation, because they were sung with an exalted voice, or because at every psalm the voice was raised; but the translation of psalms of degrees has more generally obtained. Some think that they were called psalms of degrees, because they were sung upon the fifteen steps of the temple; but they are not agreed where these steps were. Others are of opinion, that they were so denominated, because sung in a gallery, which was in the court of Israel, where the Levites sometimes read the law. Calmet thinks, that they were called songs of degrees, or of ascent, because they were composed on occasion of the deliverance of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon, either to implore this deliverance from God, or to return thanks for it after it had been obtained; and that the Hebrews used the term to go up, when they spoke of their journeying from Babylon to Jerusalem. Others are of opinion, that these psalms were sung during the time of service, while the flesh, &c, were consuming on the altar, and while the fume and smoke ascended toward heaven; and that the title Psalms of Ascent seems to favour this supposition. The point is involved in entire obscurity; and, after all, the title of these Psalms may be only a musical direction to the temple choir.

DEISTS. This term appears to have had an honourable origin, being of the same import as Theists, designating those who believe in the existence of a supreme intelligent cause, in opposition to the Epicureans, and other Atheistical philosophers. The name, in modern times, is said to have been first assumed about the middle of the sixteenth century, by some persons on the continent, in order to avoid the imputation of Atheism. Peter Viret, a divine of that century, mentions it as a new name assumed by those who rejected Christianity. Lord Edw. Herbert, baron of Cherbury, in the seventeenth century, has been regarded as the first Deistical writer in this country, or at least, the first who reduced Deism to a system; affirming the sufficiency of reason and natural religion, and rejecting divine revelation as unnecessary and superfluous. His system, however, embraced these five articles:--1. The being of God. 2. That he is to be worshipped. 3. That piety and moral virtue are the chief parts of worship. 4. That God will pardon our faults on repentance. And, 5. That there is a future state of rewards and punishment. Some have divided all Deists into two classes--those who admit a future state, and those who deny it. But Dr. S. Clarke, taking the term in the most extensive sense, arranges them under four classes:--1. Those who admit a Supreme Being, but deny that he concerns himself with the conduct or affairs of men; maintaining, with Lucretius, that God

2. Those who admit not only the being but the providence of God, with respect to the natural world; but who allow no difference between moral good and evil, nor that God takes any notice of our moral conduct. 3. Such as believe in the natural attributes of God, and his all-governing providence; yet deny the immortality of the soul, or any future state. 4. Such as admit the existence of God, his providence, and the obligations of natural religion; but so far only as these things are discoverable by the light of nature, without any divine revelation. Some of the Deists have attempted to overthrow the Christian dispensation, by opposing to it what they call the absolute perfection of natural religion. Others, as Blount, Collins, and Morgan, have endeavoured to gain the same purpose, by attacking particular parts of the Christian scheme, by explaining away the literal sense and meaning of certain passages, or by placing one portion of the sacred canon in opposition to the other. A third class, wherein we meet with the names of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, advancing farther in their progress, expunge from their creed the doctrine of future existence, deny or controvert all the moral perfections of the Deity, and wholly reject the Scriptures.

The Deists of the present day are distinguished by their zealous efforts to diffuse the principles of infidelity among the common people. Hume, Bolingbroke, and Gibbon, addressed themselves solely to the more polished classes of the community; but of late the writings of Paine, Carlile, and others, have diffused infidelity among the lower orders of society, and clothed it in the dress of vulgar ridicule, the more effectually to destroy in the common people all reverence for sacred things. Among the disciples of this school, Deism has led to the most disgusting Atheism. Thus “evil men and seducers wax worse and worse.”

DELUGE signifies, in general, any great inundation; but more particularly that universal flood by which the whole inhabitants of this globe were destroyed, except Noah and his family. According to the most approved systems of chronology, this remarkable event happened in the year 1656 after the creation, or about 2348 before the Christian æra. Of so general a calamity, from which only a single family of all who lived then on the face of the 298earth was preserved, we might naturally expect to find some memorials in the traditionary records of Pagan history, as well as in the sacred volume, where its peculiar cause, and the circumstances which attended it, are so distinctly and so fully related. Its magnitude and singularity could scarcely fail to make an indelible impression on the minds of the survivors, which would be communicated from them to their children, and would not be easily effaced from the traditions even of their latest posterity. A deficiency in such traces of this awful event, though perhaps it might not serve entirely to invalidate our belief of its reality, would certainly tend considerably to weaken its claim to credibility; it being scarcely probable that the knowledge of it should be utterly lost to the rest of the world, and confined to the documents of the Jewish nation alone. What we might reasonably expect has, accordingly, been actually and completely realized. The evidence which has been brought from almost every quarter of the world to bear upon the reality of this event, is of the most conclusive and irresistible kind; and every investigation, whether etymological or historical, which has been made concerning Heathen rites and traditions, has constantly added to its force, no less than to its extent.

And here, it were injustice to the memory of ingenuity and erudition almost unexampled in modern times, were we not to mention the labours of Bryant, the learned analysist of ancient mythology, whose patience and profoundness of research have thrown such new and convincing light on this subject. Nor must we forget his ardent and successful disciple, Mr. Faber, who, in his “Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri,” has in travelling over similar ground with his illustrious master at once corrected some of his statements, and greatly strengthened his general conclusions. As the basis of their system, however, rests on a most extensive etymological examination of the names of the deities and other mythological personages worshipped and celebrated by the Heathen, compared with the varied traditions respecting their histories, and the nature of the rites and names of the places that were sacred to them, we cannot do more, in the present article, than shortly state the result of their investigations, referring for the particular details, to the highly original treatises already mentioned. According to them, the memory of the deluge was incorporated with almost every part of the Gentile mythology and worship; Noah, under a vast multitude of characters, being one of their first deities, to whom all the nations of the Heathen world looked up as their founder; and to some circumstance or other in whose history, and that of his sons and the first patriarchs, most, if not all, of their religious ceremonies may be considered as not indistinctly referring. Traces of these, neither vague nor obscure, they conceive to be found in the history and character, not only of Deucalion, but of Atlas, Cronus, or Saturn, Dionusos, Inachus, Janus, Minos, Zeus, and others among the Greeks; of Isis, Osiris, Sesostris, Oannes, Typhon, &c, among the Egyptians; of Dagon, Agruerus, Sydyk, &c, among the Phenicians; of Astarte, Derceto, &c, among the Assyrians; of Buddha, Menu, Vishnu, &c, among the Hindus; of Fohi, and a deity represented as sitting upon the lotos in the midst of waters, among the Chinese; of Budo and Iakusi among the Japanese, &c. They discover allusions to the ark, in many of the ancient mysteries, and traditions with respect to the dove and the rainbow, by which several of these allegorical personages were attended, which are not easily explicable, unless they be supposed to relate to the history of the deluge. By the celebrated Ogdoas of the Egyptians, consisting of eight persons sailing together in the sacred baris or ark, they imagine the family of Noah, which was precisely eight in number, to have been designated; and in the rites of Adonis or Thammuz, in particular, they point out many circumstances which seem to possess a distinct reference to the events recorded in the sixth and seventh chapters of Genesis. With regard to this system, we shall only farther observe, that, after every reasonable deduction is made from it, which the exuberant indulgence of fancy occasionally exhibited by its authors appears to render necessary, it contains so much that is relevant and conclusive, that it induces the conviction that it has a solid foundation in truth and fact; it being scarcely possible to conceive, that a mere hypothesis could be supported by evidence so varied, so extensive, and in many particulars so demonstrative, as that which its framers have produced.

Beside, however, the allusions to the deluge in the mythology and religious ceremonies of the Heathen, to which we have thus concisely adverted, there is a variety of traditions concerning it still more direct and circumstantial, the coincidence of which, with the narrative of Moses, it will require no common degree of skeptical hardihood to deny. We are informed by one of the circumnavigators of the world, who visited the remote island of Otaheite, that some of the inhabitants being asked concerning their origin, answered, that their supreme God having, a long time ago, been angry, dragged the earth through the sea, when their island was broken off and preserved. In the island of Cuba, the people are said to believe that the world was once destroyed by water by three persons, evidently alluding to the three sons of Noah. It is even related, that they have a tradition among them, that an old man, knowing that the deluge was approaching, built a large ship, and went into it with a great number of animals; and that he sent out from the ship a crow, which did not immediately come back, staying to feed on the carcasses of dead animals, but afterward returned with a green branch in its mouth. The author who gives the above account likewise affirms that it was reported by the inhabitants of Castella del Oro, in Terra Firma, that during a universal deluge, one man, and his children, were the only persons who escaped, by means 299of a canoe, and that from them the world was afterward peopled. According to the Peruvians, in consequence of a general inundation, occasioned by violent and continued rains, a universal destruction of the human species took place, a few persons only excepted, who escaped into caves on the tops of the mountains, into which they had previously conveyed a stock of provisions, and a number of live animals, lest when the waters abated, the whole race should have become extinct. Others of them affirm, that only six persons were saved, by means of a float or raft, and that from them all the inhabitants of the country are descended. They farther believe, that this event took place before there were any incas or kings among them, and when the country was extremely populous. The Brazilians not only preserve the tradition of a deluge, but believe that the whole race of mankind perished in it, except one man and his sister; or, according to others, two brothers with their wives, who were preserved by climbing the highest trees on their loftiest mountains; and who afterward became the heads of two different nations. The memory of this event they are even said to celebrate in some of their religious anthems or songs. Acosta, in his history of the Indies, says, that the Mexicans speak of a deluge in their country, by which all men were drowned; and that it was afterward peopled by viracocha, who came out of the lake Titicaca; and, according to Herrera, the Machoachans, a people comparatively in the neighbourhood of Mexico, had a tradition, that a single family was formerly preserved in an ark amid a deluge of waters; and that along with them, a sufficient number of animals were saved to stock the new world. During the time that they were shut up in the ark, several ravens were sent out, one of which brought back the branch of a tree. Among the Iroquois it is reported that a certain spirit, called by them Otkon, was the creator of the world; and that another being, called Messou, repaired it after a deluge, which happened in consequence of Otkon’s dogs having one day while he was hunting with them lost themselves in a great lake, which, in consequence of this, overflowed its banks, and in a short time covered the whole earth.

Passing from the more remote western to the eastern continent, nearer to the region where Noah is generally supposed to have lived, we find the traditions respecting the deluge still more particular and minute. According to Josephus, there were a multitude of ancient authors who concurred in asserting that the world had once been destroyed by a flood: “This deluge,” says he, “and the ark are mentioned by all who have written barbaric histories, one of whom is Berosus the Chaldean.” Eusebius informs us, that Melo, a bitter enemy of the Jews, and whose testimony is on this account peculiarly valuable, takes notice of the person who was saved along with his sons from the flood, having been, after his preservation, driven away from Armenia, whence he retired to the mountainous parts of Syria. Abydenus, after giving an account of the deluge from which Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, was saved, concludes with asserting, in exact concurrence with Berosus, that the ark first rested on the mountains of Armenia, and that its remains were used by the natives as a talisman; and Plutarch mentions the Noachic dove being sent out of the ark, and returning to it again, as an intimation to Deucalion that the storm had not yet ceased.

This, however, is by no means all: Sir W. Jones, speaking of one of the Chinese fables, says, “Although I cannot insist with confidence, that the rainbow mentioned in it alludes to the Mosaic narrative of the flood, nor build any solid argument on the divine person Niuva, of whose character, and even of whose sex the historians of China speak very doubtfully; I may nevertheless assure you, after full inquiry and consideration, that the Chinese believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water, which, in works of undisputed authenticity, they describe as flowing abundantly, then subsiding, and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind.” Still more coincident even than this with the Mosaic account, is the Grecian history of the deluge, as preserved by Lucian, a native of Samosata on the Euphrates; and its authority is the more incontrovertible, on account of his being an avowed derider of all religions. The antediluvians, according to him, had gradually become so hardened and profligate, as to be guilty of every species of injustice. They paid no regard to the obligation of oaths; were insolent, inhospitable, and unmerciful. For this reason they were visited with an awful calamity. Suddenly the earth poured forth a vast quantity of water, the rain descended in torrents, the rivers overflowed their banks, and the sea rose to a prodigious height, so that “all things became water,” and all men were destroyed except Deucalion. He alone, for the sake of his prudence and piety, was reserved to a second generation. In obedience to a divine nomination, he entered, with his sons and their wives, into a large ark, which they had built for their preservation; and immediately swine, and horses, and lions, and serpents, and all other animals which live on earth, came to him by pairs, and were admitted by him into the ark. There they became perfectly mild and innoxious, their natures being changed by the gods, who created such a friendship between them, that they all sailed peaceably together, so long as the waters prevailed over the surface of the globe.

Scarcely less remarkable is the Hindoo tradition. It is contained in the ancient poem of the Bhavagat; and forms the subject of the first Purana, entitled Matsya, or “The Fish.” The following is Sir William Jones’s abridgment of it; and the identity of the event which it describes, with that of the Hebrew historian, is too obvious to require any particular illustration: “The demon Hayagriva, having purloined the Vedas from the custody of Brahma, while he was reposing at the close of the sixth Manwantara, the whole race of men became corrupt, except the seven Rishis, and Satyavrata, who then reigned in Dravira, a maritime 300region to the south of Carnata. This prince was performing his ablutions in the river Critimala, when Vishnu appeared to him in the shape of a small fish, and after several augmentations of bulk in different waters, was placed by Satyavrata in the ocean, where he thus addressed his amazed votary: ‘In seven days all creatures who have offended me shall be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a capacious vessel miraculously formed; take therefore all kinds of medicinal herbs, and esculent grain for food, and, together with the seven holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of all animals, enter the ark without fear: then shalt thou know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.’ Saying this, he disappeared; and after seven days the ocean began to overflow the coasts, and the earth to be flooded by constant showers, when Satyavrata, meditating on the deity, saw a large vessel moving on the waters. He entered it, having in all respects conformed to the instructions of Vishnu; who in the form of a vast fish, suffered the vessel to be tied with a great sea serpent, as with a cable, to his measureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew the demon, and recovered the Vedas, instructed Satyavrata in divine knowledge, and appointed him the seventh Menu, by the name of Vaivaswata.”

When we thus meet with some traditions of a deluge in almost every country, though the persons saved from it are said, in those various accounts to have resided in different districts widely separated from each other, we are constrained to allow that such a general concurrence of belief could never have originated merely from accident. While the mind is in this situation, Scripture comes forward, and, presenting a narrative more simple, better connected, and bearing an infinitely greater resemblance to authentic history, than any of those mythological accounts which occur in the traditions of Paganism, immediately flashes the conviction upon the understanding, that this must be the true history of those remarkable facts which other nations have handed down to us, only through the medium of allegory and fable. By the evidence adduced in this article, indeed, the moral certainty of the Mosaic history of the flood appears to be established on a basis sufficiently firm to bid defiance to the cavils of skepticism. “Let the ingenuity of unbelief first account satisfactorily for this universal agreement of the Pagan world; and she may then, with a greater degree of plausibility, impeach the truth of the Scriptural narrative of the deluge.” The fact, however, is not only preserved in the traditions of all nations, as we have already seen; but after all the philosophical arguments which were formerly urged against it, philosophy has at length acknowledged that the present surface of the earth must have been submerged under water. “Not only,” says Kirwan, “in every region of Europe, but also of both the old and new continents, immense quantities of marine shells, either dispersed or collected, have been discovered.” This and several other facts seem to prove, that at least a great part of the present earth was, before the last general convulsion to which it has been subjected, the bed of an ocean which, at that time, was withdrawn from it. Other facts seem also to prove with sufficient evidence, that this was not a gradual retirement of the waters which once covered the parts now inhabited by men; but a violent one, such as may be supposed from the brief but emphatic relation of Moses. The violent action of water has left its traces in various undisputed phenomena. Stratified mountains of various heights exist in different parts of Europe, and of both continents; in and between whose strata, various substances of marine, and some vegetables of terrestrial, origin, repose either in their natural state, or petrified. To overspread the plains of the arctic circle with the shells of Indian seas, and with the bodies of elephants and rhinoceri, surrounded by masses of submarine vegetation; to accumulate on a single spot, as at La Bolca, in promiscuous confusion, the marine productions of the four quarters of the globe; what conceivable instrument would be efficacious but the rush of mighty waters These facts, about which there is no dispute, and which are acknowledged by the advocates of each of the prevailing geological theories, give a sufficient attestation to the deluge of Noah, in which “the fountains of the great deep were broken up,” and from which precisely such phenomena might be expected to follow. To this may be added, though less decisive in proof, yet certainly strong as presumptive evidence, that the very aspect of the earth’s surface exhibits interesting marks both of the violent action, and the rapid subsidence, of waters; as well as affords a most interesting instance of the divine goodness in converting what was ruin itself into utility and beauty. The great frame-work of the varied surface of the habitable earth was probably laid by a more powerful agency than that of water; either when on the third day the waters under the heavens were gathered into one place, and the crust of the primitive earth was broken down to receive them, so that “the dry land might appear;” by those mighty convulsions which appear to have accompanied the general deluge; but the rounding, so to speak, of what was rugged, where the substance was yielding, and the graceful undulations of hill and dale which so frequently present themselves, were probably effected by the retiring waters. The flood has passed away; but the soils which it deposited remain; and the valleys through which its last streams were drawn off to the ocean, with many an eddy and sinuous course, still exist, exhibiting visible proofs of its agency, and impressed with forms so adapted to the benefit of man, and often so gratifying to the finest taste, that, when the flood “turned,” it may be said to have “left a blessing behind it.”

The objections once made to the fact of a general deluge have, indeed, been greatly weakened by the progress of philosophical knowledge; and may be regarded as nearly given up, like the former notion of the high 301antiquity of the race of men, founded on the Chinese and Egyptian chronologies and pretended histories. Philosophy has even at last found out that there is sufficient water in the ocean, if called forth, to overflow the highest mountains to the height given by Moses,--a conclusion which it once stoutly denied. Keill formerly computed that twenty-eight oceans would be necessary for that purpose; but we are now informed “that a farther progress in mathematical and physical knowledge has shown the different seas and oceans to contain, at least, forty-eight times more water than they were then supposed to do; and that the mere raising of the temperature of the whole body of the ocean to a degree no greater than marine animals live in, in the shallow seas between the tropics, would so expand it as more than to produce the height above the mountains stated in the Mosaic account.” As to the deluge of Noah, therefore, infidelity has almost entirely lost the aid of philosophy in framing objections to the Scriptures.

DEMONIAC, a human being possessed with and actuated by some spiritual malignant being of superior power. The word demon is used by Pagan writers often in a good sense, and is applied to their divinities; but the demons of holy writ are malignant spirits. We are not informed very particularly about their origin or destiny; but we find them represented as eµata ata, and eµata , unclean and evil spirits; and we must consider them as in league with the devil, as the subjects of his dominion, and the instruments of his will. They were the immediate agents in all possessions; and to expel or restrain them, or to cure the diseases which they were supposed to occasion, was one of the miraculous gifts of the early times.

2. On this subject an ardent controversy was agitated about the middle and toward the end of the last century, between Dr. Farmer and his opponents. In this controversy, of which we shall attempt to give a short view, it was contended, on the one hand, that the demoniacal cases recorded in the books of the New Testament, were instances of real possession; and, on the other, that they were merely diseases, set forth under the notion of possessions, in conformity with the belief which was prevalent at the time. By the one party, the language of holy writ was interpreted literally; and by the other it was considered as figurative, and used in the way of accommodation to the existing opinions. The leading asseveration of Dr. Farmer, upon the general question, is, that miracles, or works surpassing the power of men, are never performed without a divine interposition; and by a divine interposition he means, either the immediate agency of the Deity himself, or of beings empowered and commissioned by him. And the proof of this asseveration, he tells us, may very easily be found, if we consider that, on any other supposition, it is impossible to show that a religion supported by miracles is really from God. For the miracles in question, or works surpassing the power of human beings, may have been performed by evil spirits, acting independently of the Divinity, thwarting his purposes, and marring the operation of his goodness. Should it be said that, from the tendency of the miracle itself, and a fortiori, from the tendency of the miracle and religion when taken together, we may easily infer the character of the being from whom the whole scheme proceeds,--to this also Dr. Farmer is ready with his answer. “With regard to doctrines,” says he “of a moral or useful tendency, it is not, in all cases, easy for the bulk of mankind, or even for the wise and learned, to form a certain judgment concerning them. What to men appeared to have a tendency to promote virtue and happiness, superior beings, who discerned its remotest effects, might know to be a curse rather than a blessing, and give it countenance from a motive of malevolence. On the other hand, a doctrine really subservient to the cause of piety and virtue, men might judge to be prejudicial to it. And were the sanctity of the doctrine ever so apparent, it would not (on the principles of those with whom we are here arguing) certainly follow from hence, that the miracles recommending it were wrought by God; inasmuch as other beings, from motives unknown to us, might interest themselves in favour of such a doctrine.” In one word, according to this author, we do not know whether the tendency of the miracle, or of the religion, be good or not; and therefore we can form no accurate idea of the character really belonging to the being from whom the revelation proceeds. To our eyes the system may appear well calculated to promote our happiness, but it may have been the contrivance of wicked spirits. According to the sense and discernment of men, the miracle is useful in itself, but we cannot be sure whether it may not have been performed by one of the rebellious angels “who kept not their first estate.” In conformity with these opinions, Dr. Farmer maintains that there is not an instance recorded in sacred Scripture, where a miracle has been wrought, and where there is not sufficient reason to believe that the effect was produced either by the Deity himself, or by agents commissioned and empowered to act in his name. Hence he considers the Egyptian magicians as jugglers; the witch of Endor, as a ventriloquist; and, completing the system, he has written an elaborate dissertation to prove, that when Christ was “tempted of the devil,” as the Evangelist Matthew expresses it, that apostate angel was not really present; and that the whole transaction took place in a vision or a dream.

With regard to the demoniacs of the New Testament, this writer and his followers contend that, among the Jews, certain diseases, such as madness and epilepsy, were usually ascribed to the agency of evil spirits. This was the current notion and belief of the country. Upon this notion the ordinary phraseology was built. Our Lord and his Apostles adapted their instructions to this prevailing notion, and used the language which had been formed upon it; just as Moses, in his account of the 302creation, adapts himself to the popular astronomy of his time, instead of laying before us the true system of the heavenly bodies. He speaks, not in relation to what is physically correct, but in relation to what was believed. He founds his instructions upon the ideas already entertained by the people to whom the revelation was first communicated: and Christ and his Apostles do the very same thing. They speak of the demoniacs, not according to the real state of the case, but according to the notions which the Jews entertained of it. Not a few of those demoniacs appear to have been persons of a disordered understanding, subject to attacks of mania; some of them were afflicted with the epilepsy, or falling sickness, some were deaf, and others were dumb. When a demon is said to enter into a man, the meaning is, that his madness is about to show itself in a violent paroxysm; when a demon is said to speak, it is only the unhappy victim of the disease himself that speaks; and when a demon or devil is expelled, the exact truth of the case, as well as the whole of the miracle, is nothing more than that the disease is cured. Occasionally, too, say those who contend against the reality of demoniacal possessions, the language of the sacred books confirms the explanation which has just been given. Thus, in the tenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, we find the Jews saying of Christ, “He hath a devil, and is mad,” as if the expressions were perfectly equivalent; and the person who is represented, in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, as a lunatic, is spoken of by St. Mark as vexed with a dumb spirit. It is farther argued on this side of the question, that the instances of possession recorded in the books of the New Testament have all the features and appearance of ordinary diseases. The madness shows itself in these cases, just as it shows itself in the cases which occur among ourselves in the present day: it is now melancholy, and the patient is silent and sullen, and now it vents itself in bursts of anger and ferocious resentment. And the epilepsy of the sacred books is the epilepsy of all our systems of nosology: the phenomena of the diseases are precisely the same. Nor does this, say they, detract from the very high character which Christ undoubtedly sustains in the inspired writings, or diminish the value of his miracles as the evidences of our religion; since it must be allowed, that to cure a disease with a word or a touch is an effort of power far beyond the reach of any human being. And let it be remembered, that those who deny the expulsion of demons are ready to admit that diseases were miraculously cured. There is a miracle in either case; and, in either case, it is a sufficient proof of our Saviour’s mission, and an adequate support of the Christian faith.

3. To these statements and reasonings, the advocates of possessions have not been slow to reply. They call in question the truth of Dr. Farmer’s leading asseveration; namely, “that extraordinary works have never been performed without a divine interposition;” and contend, that as human beings have a certain sphere and agency allotted them, so it is reasonable to believe that malignant spirits have a wider sphere, and an agency less controlled; and that within this sphere, and in the exercise of this agency, they perform actions, the tendency of which is to thwart the purposes of the divine beneficence, and to introduce confusion and misery into the world. They argue, too, that the devil himself, the chief of the apostate spirits, is often represented in holy writ as exerting his malignity in opposition to the designs of infinite goodness; and in the case of our first parents, as a remarkable example, he tempted them to disobedience, and led them to their fall. It was in consequence of his machinations, that they brought down upon themselves the wrath of Heaven, and were driven from the garden in which “the Lord had placed them.” The advocates of possessions contend still farther, that the revelation which is made to us in sacred Scripture is addressed to our understandings; that it is not only in our power, but that it is our indispensable duty, to examine it, and to judge of it; that the tendency of any miracle, or system of doctrine, is a sufficient evidence of the character belonging to him who performs the miracle, or publishes the doctrine; that good actions are demonstrative of the quality of goodness; and, in short, that a religion calculated to make us happy must have proceeded from a Being who has consulted and provided for our happiness. Nor is this a matter so abstruse and remote from human apprehension, that we can form no opinion about it. “For,” say they, “if any thing connected with Christianity be plain, it seems to be that the tendency of the religion is beneficent; and that it is no less pure in its character than blessed in its effects. The very miracles recorded in Scripture are proofs of goodness. They must have been wrought by a good being. And,” they continue, “we think ourselves entitled to hold our religion as true, and to regard it as in the highest degree beneficial, though we must allow, at the same time, that the magicians of Egypt performed many wonderful works by the agency of wicked spirits; that the sorceress of Endor was in league with the powers of darkness, and that Christ was literally tempted ‘of the devil,’ in the wilderness of Judea.”

4. With regard to the more specific question of demoniacal possessions, they answer, that though God has often been pleased to accommodate himself to our apprehension by adopting the current language of the countries, where the revelation was first published; yet the account of the creation given by Moses is not altogether an instance in point. For, say they, while it is granted that the true system of the universe is not laid before us in the first chapter of Genesis, it ought to be remembered that the statements in that chapter are exceedingly general; and that, while the whole truth is not told, it being no part of the revelation to tell it, there is, at the same time, no error directly inculcated. In the demoniacal cases, however, the conduct of the inspired writers, and, indeed, of Christ himself, is widely different. 303They positively and directly inform us, that a demon “enters into” a man, and “comes out” of him; they represent the demons as speaking, and reasoning, and hoping, and fearing, as having inclinations and aversions peculiar to themselves, and distinct from those of the person who is the subject of the possession; they tell us of one unhappy sufferer who was vexed with many devils; and, in the case of the demoniac of Gadara, they assure us that the devils were “cast out” of the man, and were permitted, at their own request, to “enter into” a herd of swine which were feeding in the neighbourhood, and that immediately the herd ran violently down a steep place, and were drowned in the sea. Who ever heard of swine afflicted with madness as a natural disease Or, when and where has the epilepsy, or falling sickness, been predicable of the sow For, it must be carefully observed that the disease of the man, the affection of the human sufferer, whatever that affection might have been, was clearly transferred from him to the animals in question. Beside, as various instances are recorded in Scripture, and as several cases are given at considerable length, might we not expect, if possessions were really nothing more than ordinary diseases, that the truth would be somewhere told or hinted at that, within the compass of the sacred canon, something would be said, or something insinuated, which would lead us to understand that the language, though inaccurate and improper, was used in accommodation to the popular belief Might we not expect that Christ himself would have declared, in one unequivocal affirmation, or in some intelligible way, the exact truth of the case Or, at all events, when the Holy Ghost had descended upon the Apostles on the day of pentecost, and when the full disclosure of the revelation appears to have been made, might it not reasonably have been looked for that the popular error would have been rectified, and the language reduced from its figurative character to a state of simple correctness What conceivable motive could influence our Saviour, or his Apostles, to sanction the delusion of the multitude And does it not strike at the root of the Christian religion itself, to have it thought, for a single moment, that its “Author and Finisher,” who came to enlighten and to reform the world, should have, on so many occasions, not only countenanced, but confirmed, an opinion which he must have known to be “the reverse of the truth”

Let us then, say they, beware how we relinquish the literal sense of holy writ, in search of allegorical or figurative interpretations. And if, upon any occasion, we think it proper to do so, let us consider well the grounds and reasons upon which our determination is built. It is evident that the devil and his angels, according to all that we can learn of them in the sacred books, are real beings; that the demons of the New Testament are malignant spirits; and that they act upon the same principles, and even under the authority of Satan himself, who is otherwise called Beelzebub, and the prince of the devils. Nay, in these very cases of possession, the chief of the apostate angels is clearly set forth as acting either in his own person, or by means of his infernal agents. And it is on this supposition alone that we can explain the language of Christ in that remarkable declaration which he makes to the Pharisees and rulers of the Jews, and which we find recorded in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel by St. Matthew. “The Pharisees heard it,” observes the Evangelist, “and they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand; and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how shall then his kingdom stand”

5. On this subject of diseases it is also to be observed, that the inspired writers uniformly make a distinction between diseases occurring in the ordinary course of nature, and diseases occasioned by the agency of evil spirits. “There is every where,” says Bishop Porteus, “a plain distinction made between common diseases and demoniacal possessions, which shows that they are totally different things. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, where the very first mention is made of these possessions, it is said that our Lord’s fame went throughout all Syria, and that they brought unto him ‘all sick people,people, that were taken with divers diseases and torments,’ and those ‘which were possessed with devils,’ and he healed them. Here those that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those possessed with devils, are mentioned as distinct and separate persons: a plain proof that the demoniacal possessions were not natural diseases: and the very same distinction is made in several other passages of holy writ. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the demoniacs were persons really possessed with evil spirits; and although it may appear strange to us, yet we find, from Josephus and other historians, that it was in those times no uncommon case.”

6. We may conclude, from the argument on both sides of the question, that the only reason which can be urged for departing from the obvious sense of Scripture is, that cases of possession involve a philosophical mystery. This, truly, is a very insufficient ground, and especially when we consider that if we better knew the nature of spirits, and of our own frame, the philosophy might appear all on the opposite side, and no doubt would do so. But no one who admits the Scriptures to decide this question, can consistently stand upon that objectionable ground of interpretation to which he is forced by denying the plain and consistent sense of innumerable passages. If he admits this error, he must admit many others; for a Bible, so interpreted, may be made to mean any thing.

DESTRUCTIONISTS, a denomination of Christians who believe that the final punishment threatened in the Gospel to the wicked and impenitent, consists not in eternal misery, 304but in a total extinction of being; and that the sentence of annihilation shall be executed with more or less previous torment, in proportion to the greater or less guilt of the criminal. This doctrine is largely maintained in the sermons of the late Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich; Mr. S. Bourn, of Birmingham; and many others. In defence of the system, Mr. Bourn argues, that there are many passages of Scripture, in which the ultimate punishment to which wicked men shall be adjudged is defined, in the most precise and intelligible terms, to be an everlasting destruction, proceeding from Him who is equally able to destroy as to create; and who, by our Lord himself, is said to be “able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” By the “everlasting punishment of the wicked,” therefore, Mr. B. understands “everlasting destruction,” literally speaking, “from the presence of the Lord,” which is “the second death;” from which there can be no resurrection, and which is set in opposition to “eternal life.” In speaking of the images used to illustrate this subject, Mr. B. remarks, that the wicked are compared to combustible materials, as brands, tares, &c, which the fire utterly consumes: so Sodom and Gomorrah suffer “the vengeance of eternal fire,” that is, they are destroyed for ever; and the phrases, “the worm that dieth not, and the fire which is not quenched,” are placed in opposition to entering into life, and denote the termination of existence, Mark ix, 43.

To all this it may be answered: 1. That annihilation, as a punishment, admits of no degrees. 2. If we connect with this a previous state of torment, (as Mr. Winchester says, “for ages of ages,”) annihilation must be rather a relief from punishment, than the punishment itself. 3. That annihilation is rather a suspension than an exertion of divine power. 4. That the punishment of impenitent men is described as the same with that of the fallen angels, who are not annihilated, Matt. xxv, 41, but remain in expectation of future punishment, “Art thou come to torment us before the time” Matt. viii, 29. 5. In the state of future punishment, there is said to be “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” Matt. xxiv, 51. 6. As the happiness of saints in the future state consists not merely in being, but in well being, or happiness; so the punishment of the wicked requires the idea of eternal suffering to support the contrast. It might be added, that annihilation, as far as we know, forms no part of the divine economy. One thing is also certain and indisputable: the strong language of Scripture is intended to deter men from sin; and whoever attempts to remove the barrier, offers insult to the divine wisdom, and trifles with his own destiny. But the capital argument is, that it is unscriptural:--“Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” is, like many others, a declaration, to which no dexterity of interpretation can give any other good sense, than the continuance of conscious punishment.

DEVIL, Diabolus, an evil angel. The word is formed from the French diable, of the Latin diabolus, which comes from the Greek d, which, in its ordinary acceptation, signifies calumniator, traducer, or false accuser, from the verb dae, to calumniate, &c; or from the ancient British diafol. Dr. Campbell observes, that, though the word is sometimes, both in the Old Testament and the New, applied to men and women, as traducers, it is, by way of eminence, employed to denote that apostate angel, who is exhibited to us, particularly in the New Testament, as the great enemy of God and man. In the two first chapters of Job, it is the word in the Septuagint by which the Hebrew , Satan, or adversary, is translated. Indeed, the Hebrew word in this application, as well as the Greek, has been naturalized in most modern languages. Thus we say, indifferently, the devil, or Satan; only the latter has more the appearance of a proper name, as it is not attended with the article. There is, however, this difference between the import of such terms, as occurring in their native tongues, and as modernized in translations. In the former, they always retain somewhat of their primitive meaning, and, beside indicating a particular being, or class of beings, they are of the nature of appellatives, and make a special character or note of distinction in such beings. Whereas, when thus Latinized or Englished, they answer solely the first of these uses, as they come nearer the nature of proper names. is sometimes applied to human beings; but nothing is more easy than to distinguish this application from the more frequent application to the arch-apostate. One mark of distinction is, that, in this last use of the term, it is never found in the plural. When the plural is used, the context always shows that it refers to human beings, and not to fallen angels. It occurs in the plural only thrice, and that only in the epistles of St. Paul, 1 Tim. iii, 11; 2 Tim. iii, 3; Titus ii, 3. Another criterion whereby the application of this word to the prince of darkness may be discovered, is its being attended with the article. The term almost invariably is d. The excepted instances occur in the address of Paul to Elymas the sorcerer, Acts xiii, 10; and that of our Lord to the Pharisees, John viii, 44. The more doubtful cases are those in 1 Peter v, 8, and Rev. xx, 2. These are all the examples in which the word, though used indefinitely or without the article, evidently denotes our spiritual and ancient enemy; and the examples in which it occurs in this sense with the article, are too numerous to be recited.

2. That there are angels and spirits, good and bad, says an eminent writer; that at the head of these last, there is one more considerable and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name, of a serpent, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose head, in the language of prophecy, the Son of Man was one day to bruise; that this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part fulfilled, has not yet received his death’s wound, but is still permitted, for ends to us unsearchable, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world, 305hostile to its virtue and happiness,--all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be previously “spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit,” can possibly entertain a doubt of it. Certainly, among the numerous refinements of modern times, there is scarcely any thing more extraordinary than the attempt that has been made, and is still making, to persuade us that there really exists no such being in the world as the devil; and that when the inspired writers speak of such a being, all that they mean is, to personify the evil principle! A bold effort unquestionably; and could its advocates succeed in persuading men into the universal belief of it, they would do more to promote his cause and interest in the world than he himself has been able to effect since the seduction of our first parents. But to be armed against this subtle stratagem, let us attend to the plain doctrine of divine revelation respecting this matter. In the Old Testament, particularly in the first two chapters of Job, this evil spirit is called Satan; and in the New Testament, he is spoken of under various titles, which are also descriptive of his power and malignity; as for example, he is called, “the prince of this world,” John xii, 31; “the prince of the power of the air,” Eph. ii, 2; “the god of this world,” 2 Cor. iv, 4; “the dragon, that old serpent, the devil,” Rev. xx, 2; “the wicked one,” 1 John v, 19. He is represented as exercising a sovereign sway over the human race in their natural state, or previous to their being enlightened, regenerated, and sanctified by the Gospel, Eph. ii, 2, 3. His kingdom is described as a kingdom of darkness; and the influence which he exercises over the human mind is called “the power,” or energy, “of darkness,” Col. i, 13. Hence believers are said to be “called out of darkness into marvellous light,” 1 Peter ii, 9. Farther, he is said to go about “as a roaring lion, seeking its prey, that he may destroy men’s souls,” 1 Peter v, 8. Christ says, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him; when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of that which is his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it,” John viii, 44. We are also taught that this grand adversary of God and man has a numerous band of fallen spirits under his control; and that both he and they are reserved under a sentence of condemnation unto the judgment of the great day, Jude 6; and that “everlasting fire,” or perpetual torment, “is prepared for the devil and his angels,” Matt. xxv, 41. In these various passages of Scripture, and many others which might be added, the existence of the devil is expressly stated; but if, as our modern Sadducees affirm, nothing more is intended in them than a personification of the abstract quality of evil, the Bible, and especially the New Testament, must be eminently calculated to mislead us in matters which intimately concern our eternal interests. If, in inferring from them the existence of evil spirits in this world, we can be mistaken, it will not be an easy matter to show what inference deduced from Scripture premises may safely be relied on. It ought not, however, to surprise Christians that attempts of this kind should be made. St. Paul tells us, that in his day there were “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ; and no wonder,” says he, “for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light,” 2 Cor. xi, 13, 14.

3. To the notion, that the Jews derived their opinions on this subject from the oriental philosophy, and that like the Persians they set up a rival god; it may be replied, that the Jewish notion of the devil had no resemblance to what the Persians first, and the Manicheans afterward, called the evil principle; which they made in some sort coördinate with God, and the first source of all evil, as the other is of good. For the devil, in the Jewish system, is a creature as much as any other being in the universe, and is liable to be controlled by omnipotence,--an attribute which they ascribed to God alone.

4. The arguments from philosophy against the existence of evil spirits are as frail as that which is pretended to be grounded upon criticism. For that there is nothing irrational in the notion of superior beings, is plain from this: that if there be other beings below us, there may be others above us. If we have demonstration of one Being at least who is invisible, there may be many other created invisible and spiritual beings. If we see men sometimes so bad as to delight in tempting others to sin and ruin, there may exist a whole order of fallen beings who may have the same business and the same malignant pleasure; and if we see some men furiously bent upon destroying truth and piety, this is precisely what is ascribed to these evil spirits. It is one of the serious circumstances of our probation on earth, that we should be exposed to this influence of Satan, and we are therefore called to “watch and pray that we enter not into temptation.”

5. The establishment of the worship of devils so general in some form throughout a great part of the Heathen world, is at once a painful and a curious subject, and deserves a more careful investigation than it has received. In modern times, devil-worship is seen systematized in Ceylon, Burmah, and many parts of the East Indies; and an order of devil-priests exists, though contrary to the Budhist religion, against the temples of which it sets up rival altars.

Mr. Ives, in his Travels through Persia, gives the following curious account of devil-worship: “These people (the Sanjacks, a nation inhabiting the country about Mosul, the ancient Nineveh) once professed Christianity, then Mohammedanism, and last of all devilism. They say it is true that the devil has at present a quarrel with God; but the time will come when, the pride of his heart being subdued, he will make his submission to the Almighty; and, as the Deity cannot be implacable, the devil will receive a full pardon for all his transgressions, and both he, and all those who paid him attention during his disgrace, will be admitted into the blessed mansions. This is the foundation of their hope, and this chance for heaven 306they esteem to be a better one than that of trusting to their own merits, or the merits of the leader of any other religion whatsoever. The person of the devil they look on as sacred; and when they affirm any thing solemnly, they do it by his name. All disrespectful expressions of him they would punish with death, did not the Turkish power prevent them. Whenever they speak of him, it is with the utmost respect; and they always put before his name a certain title corresponding to that of highness or lord.” The worshippers of the devil mentioned by Ives were also found by Niebuhr in the same country, in a village between Bagdad and Mosul, called Abd-el-asis, on the great Zab, a river which empties itself into the Tigris. This village, says he, is entirely inhabited by people who are called Isidians, and also Dauâsin. As the Turks allow the free exercise of religion only to those who possess sacred books, that is, the Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews, the Isidians are obliged to keep the principles of their religion very secret. They therefore call themselves Mohammedans, Christians, or Jews, according to the party of him who inquires what their religion is. Some accuse them of worshipping the devil under the name of Tschellebi; that is, Lord. Others say that they show great reverence for the sun and fire, that they are unpolished Heathens, and have horrid customs. I have also been assured that the Dauâsins do not worship the devil; but adore God alone as the Creator and Benefactor of all mankind. They will not speak of Satan, nor even have his name mentioned. They say that it is just as improper for men to take a part in the dispute between God and a fallen angel, as for a peasant to ridicule and curse a servant of the pacha who has fallen into disgrace; that God did not require our assistance to punish Satan for his disobedience; it might happen that he might receive him into favour again; and then we must be ashamed before the judgment seat of God, if we had, uncalled for, abused one of his angels: it was therefore the best not to trouble one’s self about the devil; but endeavour not to incur God’s displeasure ourselves. When the Isidians go to Mosul, they are not detained by the magistrates, even if they are known. The vulgar, however, sometimes attempt to extort money from them. When they offer eggs or butter to them for sale, they endeavour first to get the articles into their hands, and then dispute about the price, or for this or other reasons to abuse Satan with all their might; on which the Dauâsin is often polite enough to leave every thing behind, rather than hear the devil abused. But in the countries where they have the upper hand, nobody is allowed to curse him, unless he chooses to be beaten, or perhaps even to lose his life.

DEUTERONOMY, from dte, second, and µ, law; the last book of the Pentateuch or five books of Moses. As its name imports, it contains a repetition of the civil and moral law, which was a second time delivered by Moses, with some additions and explanations, as well to impress it more forcibly upon the Israelites in general, as in particular for the benefit of those who, being born in the wilderness, were not present at the first promulgation of the law. It contains also a recapitulation of the several events which had befallen the Israelites since their departure from Egypt, with severe reproaches for their past misconduct, and earnest exhortations to future obedience. The Messiah is explicitly foretold in this book; and there are many remarkable predictions interspersed in it, particularly in the twenty-eighth, thirtieth, thirty-second, and thirty-third chapters, relative to the future condition of the Jews. The book of Deuteronomy finishes with an account of the death of Moses, which is supposed to have been added by his successor, Joshua.

DEW. Dews in Palestine are very plentiful, like a small shower of rain every morning. Gideon filled a basin with the dew which fell on a fleece of wool, Judges vi, 38. Isaac, blessing Jacob, wished him the dew of heaven, which fattens the fields, Gen. xxvii, 28. In those warm countries where it seldom rains, the night dews supply the want of showers. Isaiah speaks of rain as if it were a dew, Isaiah xviii, 4. Some of the most beautiful and illustrative of the images of the Hebrew poets are taken from the dews of their country. The reviving influence of the Gospel, the copiousness of its blessings, and the multitude of its converts, are thus set forth.

DIADEM. See Crown.

DIAL is not mentioned in Scripture before the reign of Ahaz. Interpreters differ concerning the form of the dial of Ahaz, 2 Kings xx. The generality of expositors think that it was a staircase so disposed, that the sun showed the hours upon it by the shadow. Others suppose that it was a pillar erected in the middle of a very level and smooth pavement, on which the hours were engraven. According to these authors, the lines marked in this pavement are what the Scripture calls degrees. Grotius describes it as follows: “It was a concave hemisphere, and in the midst was a globe, the shadow of which fell on the different lines engraven in the concavity of the hemisphere; these lines were twenty-eight in number.” This description answers pretty nearly to that kind of dial, which the Greeks called scapha, a boat or hemisphere, the invention (rather introduction) of which, Vitruvius ascribes to Berosus the Chaldean. It would seem, indeed, that the most ancient sun dial known is in the form of a half circle, hollowed into the stone, and the stone cut down to an angle. This kind of dial was invented in Babylon, and was very probably the same as that of Ahaz.

DIAMOND, . Exod. xxviii, 18; xxix, 11; Ezek. xxviii, 13. This has from remote antiquity been considered as the most valuable, or, more properly, the most costly substance in nature. The reason of the high estimation in which it was held by the ancients was its rarity and its extreme hardness and brilliancy. It filled the sixth place in the high priest’s breastplate, and on it was engraven the name of Naphtali.

307DIANA, a celebrated goddess of the Heathens, who was honoured principally at Ephesus, Acts xix. She was one of the number of the twelve superior deities, and was called by the several names of Hebe, Trivia, and Hecate. In the heavens she was the moon, upon earth she was called Diana, and in hell Hecate. She was worshipped in Palestine, Jeremiah vii, 18; xliv, 17, 18.

DIONYSIUS, the Areopagite, a convert of St. Paul, Acts xvii, 34. Chrysostom declares Dionysius to have been a citizen of Athens; which is credible, because the judges of the Areopagus generally were so. After his conversion, Dionysius was made the first bishop of Athens; having laboured, and suffered much in the Gospel, he is said to have been burnt at Athens, A. D. 95. The works attributed to Dionysius are generally reputed spurious.

DIRECTORY, an ecclesiastical instrument, containing directions for the conduct of religious worship, drawn up by the assembly of divines, by order of parliament, in 1645. It was intended to supply the use of the Common Prayer Book, which had been abolished. It orders the reverent observation of public worship, prayer, singing of psalms, the reading and exposition of the Scriptures, &c. It enjoins no forms, but recommends the Lord’s prayer as a model of devotion; directs that the Lord’s Supper may be received sitting; that the Sabbath day be strictly observed; but puts down all saints’ days, consecrations of churches, and private or lay baptisms. This Directory, which was formerly bound with the Westminster confession of faith, is still, in effect, the plan of worship among the Dissenters, and especially the Presbyterians.

DISCIPLE. The proper signification of this word is a learner; but it signifies in the New Testament, a believer, a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. Disciple is often used instead of Apostle in the Gospels; but, subsequently, Apostles were distinguished from disciples. The seventy-two who followed our Saviour from the beginning, are called disciples; as are others who were of the body of believers and bore no office. In subsequent times, the name disciple, in the sense of learner, was sometimes given to the atµe, “auditores,” persons who, in the primitive church, were receiving a preparatory instruction in Christianity. They were divided into two classes, those who received private instruction, and those who were admitted to the congregations, and were under immediate preparation for baptism. The church readers were, in some places, appointed to instruct the catechumens; and at Alexandria, where often learned men presented themselves for instruction, the office of catechist was filled by learned laymen, and these catechists laid the foundation of an important theological school.

DISEASES. In the primitive ages of the world, diseases, in consequence of the great simplicity in the mode of living, were but few in number. At a subsequent period the number was increased by the accession of diseases that had been previously unknown. Epidemics also, diseases somewhat peculiar in their character, and still more fearful in their consequences, soon made their appearance, some infesting one period of life, and some another; some limiting their ravages to one country, and some to another. Prosper Alpinus mentions the diseases which are prevalent in Egypt, and in other countries in the same climate: they are ophthalmies, leprosies, inflammations of the brain, pains in the joints, the hernia, the stone in the reins and bladder, the phthisic, hectic, pestilential and tertian fevers, weakness of the stomach, obstructions in the liver, and the spleen. Of these diseases, ophthalmies, pestilential fevers, and inflammations of the brain, are epidemics; the others are of a different character. The leprosy prevails in Egypt, in the southern part of Upper Asia, and in fact may be considered a disease endemic in warm climates generally. Accordingly, it is not at all surprising, if many of the Hebrews, when they left Egypt, were infected with it; but the assertion of Manetho, that they were all thus infected, and were in consequence of the infection, driven out by force, in which he is precipitately and carelessly followed by Strabo, Tacitus, by Justin Trogus, and others more recent, is a mere dream without any foundation. The appearance of the disease externally is not always the same. The spot is commonly small, and resembling in its appearance the small red spot that would be the consequence of a puncture from a needle, or the pustules of a ringworm. The spots for the most part make their appearance very suddenly, especially if the infected person, at the period when the disease shows itself externally, happens to be in great fear, or to be moved with anger, Num. xii, 10; 2 Chron. xxvi, 19. They commonly exhibit themselves in the first instance on the face, about the nose and eyes; and gradually increase in size for a number of years, till they become, as respects the extent of surface which they embrace on the skin, as large as a pea or bean; they are then called . The white spot or pustule, , morphea alba, and also the dark spot, , morphea nigra, are indications of the existence of the real leprosy, Lev. xiii, 2, 39; xiv, 56. From these it is necessary to distinguish the spot, which, whatever resemblance there may be in form, is so different in its effects, called , and also the harmless sort of scab, which occurs under the word, , Lev. xiii, 6–8, 29. Moses, in the thirteenth chapter of Leviticus, lays down very explicit rules for the purpose of distinguishing between those spots which are proofs of the actual existence of the leprosy, and those spots which are harmless and result from some other cause. Those spots which are the genuine effects and marks of the leprosy gradually dilate themselves, till at length they cover the whole body. Not only the skin is subject to a total destruction, but the body is affected in every part. The pain, it is true, is not very great, but there is a great debility of the system, and great uneasiness and grief, so much so, as almost to drive the victim of the disease to self-destruction.

3082. Moses acted the part of a wise legislator in making those laws which have come down to us concerning the inspection and separation of leprous persons. The object of these laws will appear peculiarly worthy, when it is considered, that they were designed, not wantonly to fix the charge of being a leper upon an innocent person, and thus to impose upon him those restraints and inconveniences which the truth of such a charge naturally implies, but to ascertain, in the fairest and most satisfactory manner, and to separate those, and those only, who were truly and really leprous. As this was the prominent object of his laws that have come down to us on this subject, namely, to secure a fair and impartial decision on a question of this kind, he has not mentioned those signs of leprosy which admitted of no doubt, but those only which might be the subject of contention; and left it to the priests, who also fulfilled the office of physicians, to distinguish between the really leprous, and those who had only the appearance of being such. We find mention, in the rules laid down by Moses for the purpose of ascertaining the true tokens of leprosy, of a cutaneous disorder which is denominated by him bohak. The words of Moses, which may be found in Lev. xiii, 38, 39, are as follows: “If a man or woman have white spots on the skin, and the priest see that the colour of these spots is faint and pale, it is, in this case, the bohak that has broken out on the skin, and they are clean.” A person, accordingly, who was attacked with this disease, the bohak, was not declared unclean; and the reason of it was, that it is not only harmless in itself, but is free from that infectious and hereditary character which belongs to the true leprosy. “The bohak” says Mr. Niebuhr, “is neither infectious nor dangerous. A black boy at Mocha, who was attacked with this sort of leprosy, had white spots here and there on his body. It was said that the use of sulphur had for some time been of service to this boy, but had not altogether removed the disease.” He then adds the following extract from the papers of a Dr. Foster: “May 15th, 1763, I myself saw a case of the bohak in a Jew at Mocha. The spots in this disease are of unequal size. They have no shining appearance, nor are they perceptibly elevated above the skin; and they do not change the colour of the hair. Their colour is an obscure white or somewhat reddish. The rest of the skin of this patient was blacker than that of the people of the country was in general, but the spots were not so white as the skin of an European when not sunburnt. The spots, in this species of leprosy, do not appear on the hands, nor about the navel, but on the neck and face; not, however, on that part of the head where the hair grows very thick. They gradually spread, and continue sometimes only about two months; but in some cases, indeed, as long as two years, and then disappear, by degrees, of themselves. This disorder is neither infectious nor hereditary, nor does it occasion any inconvenience.” “That all this,” remarks Michaëlis, “should still be found exactly to hold at the distance of three thousand five hundred years from the time of Moses, ought certainly to gain some credit to his laws, even with those who will not allow them to be of divine authority.” The pestilence, in its effects, is equally terrible with the leprosy, and is much more rapid in its progress; for it terminates the existence of those who are infected with it almost immediately, and at the farthest within three or four days. The Gentiles were in the habit of referring back the pestilence to the agency and interference of that being, whatever it might be, whether idol or spirit, whom they regarded as the divinity. The Hebrews, also, every where attribute it to the agency either of God himself, or of that legate or angel, whom they denominate .

3. The palsy of the New Testament is a disease of very wide import. Many infirmities, as Richter has demonstrated, were comprehended under the word which is rendered palsy in the New Testament. 1. The apoplexy, a paralytic shock, which affected the whole body. 2. The hemiplegy, which affects and paralyzes only one side of the body. 3. The paraplegy, which paralyzes all the parts of the system below the neck. 4. The catalepsy, which is caused by a contraction of the muscles in the whole or a part of the body, for example, in the hands, and is very dangerous. The effects upon the parts seized are very violent and deadly. For instance: when a person is struck with it, if his hand happens to be extended, he is unable to draw it back. If the hand is not extended when he is struck with the disease, he is unable to extend it: it appears diminished in size, and dried up in appearance. Hence the Hebrews were in the habit of calling it “a withered hand,” 1 Kings xiii, 4–6; Zech. xi, 17; Matt. xii, 10–13; John v, 3. 5. The cramp, in oriental countries, is a fearful malady, and by no means unfrequent. It originates from the chills of the night. The limbs, when seized with it, remain immovable, sometimes turned in, and sometimes out, in the same position as when they were first seized. The person afflicted resembles those undergoing the torture ßasaµ, and experiences nearly the same exquisite sufferings. Death follows the disease in a few days, Matt. viii, 6, 8; Luke vii, 2; 1 Macc. ix, 55–58.

DISPENSATIONS, Divine. These are otherwise called “the ways of God,” and denote those schemes or methods which are devised and pursued by the wisdom and goodness of God, in order to manifest his perfections and will to mankind, for the purpose of their instruction, discipline, reformation, and advancement in rectitude of temper and conduct, in order to promote their happiness. These are the grand ends of the divine dispensations; and in their aptitude to promote these ends consist their excellence and glory. The works or constitutions of nature are, in a general sense, divine dispensations, by which God condescends to display to us his being and attributes, and thus to lead us to the acknowledgment, adoration, and love, of our Creator, Father, and Benefactor. The sacred Scriptures 309reveal and record other dispensations of divine providence, which have been directed to the promotion of the religious principles, moral conduct, and true happiness of mankind. These have varied in several ages of the world, and have been adapted by the wisdom and goodness of God to the circumstances of his intelligent and accountable creatures. In this sense the various revelations which God has communicated to mankind at different periods, and the means he has used, as occasion has required, for their discipline and improvement, have been justly denominated divine dispensations. Accordingly, we read in the works of theological writers of the various dispensations of religion; that of the patriarchs, that of Moses, and that of Christ, called the dispensation of grace, the perfection and ultimate object of every other. All these were adapted to the conditions of the human race at these several periods; all, in regular succession, were mutually connected and rendered preparatory one to the other; and all were subservient to the design of saving the world, and promoting the perfection and happiness of its rational and moral inhabitants. See Covenant.

DISPERSION OF MANKIND. See Division of the Earth.

DIVINATION, a conjecture or surmise, formed concerning future events, from things which are supposed to presage them. The eastern people were always fond of divination, magic, the curious arts of interpreting dreams, and of obtaining a knowledge of future events. When Moses published the law, this disposition had long been common in Egypt and the neighbouring countries. To prevent the Israelites from consulting diviners, fortune tellers, interpreters of dreams, &c, he forbade them, under very severe penalties, to consult persons of this description, and promised to them the true spirit of prophecy as infinitely superior. He commanded those to be stoned who pretended to have a familiar spirit, or the spirit of divination, Deut. xviii, 9, 10, 15. The writings of the prophets are full of invectives against the Israelites who consulted diviners, and against false prophets who by such means seduced the people.

2. Different kinds of divination have passed for sciences, as 1. Aëromancy, divining by the air. 2. Astrology, by the heavens. 3. Augury, by the flight and singing of birds, &c. 4. Cheiromancy, by inspecting the lines of the hand. 5. Geomancy, by observing cracks or clefts in the earth. 6. Haruspicy, by inspecting the bowels of animals. 7. Horoscopy, a branch of astrology, marking the position of the heavens when a person is born. 8. Hydromancy, by water. 9. Physiognomy, by the countenance. 10. Pyromancy, a divination made by fire.

3. The kinds of divination, to which superstition in modern times has given belief, are not less numerous, or less ridiculous, than those which were practised in the days of profound ignorance. The divining rod, which is mentioned in Scripture, is still in some repute in the north of England, though its application is now confined principally to the discovery of veins of lead ore, seams of coal, or springs. In order that it may possess the full virtue for this purpose, it should be made of hazel. Divination by Virgilian, Horatian, or Bible lots, was formerly very common; and the last kind is still practised. The works are opened by chance, and the words noticed which are covered by the thumb: if they can be interpreted in any respect relating to the person, they are reckoned prophetic. Charles I. is said to have used this kind of divination to ascertain his fate. The ancient Christians were so much addicted to the sortes sanctorum, or divining by the Bible, that it was expressly forbidden by a council. Divination by the speal, or blade bone of a sheep, is used in Scotland. In the Highlands it is called sleina-reached, or reading the speal bone. It was very common in England in the time of Drayton, particularly among the colony of Flemings settled in Pembrokeshire. Camden relates of the Irish, that they looked through the bare blade bone of a sheep; and if they saw any spot in it darker than ordinary, they believed that somebody would be buried out of the house. The Persians used this mode of divination.

4. Of all attempts to look into futurity by such means, as well as resorting to charms and other methods of curing diseases, and discovering secrets, we may say, that they are relics of Paganism, and argue an ignorance, folly, or superstition, dishonourable to the Christian name; and are therefore to be reproved and discouraged.

DIVISION OF THE EARTH. The prophecy of Noah, says Dr. Hales, was uttered long after the deluge. It evidently alludes to a divine decree for the orderly division of the earth among the three primitive families of his sons, because it notices the “tents of Shem” and the “enlargement of Japheth,” Genesis ix, 20–27. This decree was probably promulgated about the same time by the venerable patriarch. The prevailing tradition of such a decree for this threefold division of the earth, is intimated both in the Old and New Testament. Moses refers to it, as handed down to the Israelites, “from the days of old, and the years of many generations; as they might learn from their fathers and their elders,” and farther, as conveying a special grant of the land of Palestine, to be the lot of the twelve tribes of Israel:--

And this furnishes an additional proof of the justice of the expulsion of the Canaanites, as usurpers, by the Israelites, the rightful possessors of the land of Palestine, under Moses, Joshua, and their successors, when the original grant was renewed to Abraham, Gen. xv, 13–21. And the knowledge of this divine decree may satisfactorily account for the panic terror with which the devoted nations of Canaan were struck at the miraculous passage of the Red 310Sea by the Israelites, and approach to their confines, so finely described by Moses:--

St. Paul, also, addressing the Athenians, refers to the same decree, as a well-known tradition in the Heathen world: “God made of one blood every nation of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth; having appointed the predetermined seasons and boundaries of their dwellings,” Acts xvii, 26. Here he represents mankind as all of “one blood,” race, or stock, “the sons of Adam” and of Noah in succession; and the seasons and the boundaries of their respective settlements, as previously regulated by the divine appointment. And this was conformable to their own geographical allegory; that Chronus, the god of time, or Saturn, divided the universe among his three sons, allotting the heaven to Jupiter, the sea to Neptune, and hell to Pluto. But Chronus represented Noah, who divided the world among his three sons, allotting the upper regions of the north to Japheth, the maritime or middle regions to Shem, and the lower regions of the south to Ham. According to the Armenian tradition recorded by Abulfaragi, Noah distributed the habitable earth from north to south between his sons, and gave to Ham the region of the blacks, to Shem the region of the tawny, fuscorum, and to Japheth the region of the ruddy, rubrorum: and he dates the actual division of the earth in the hundred and fortieth year of Peleg, B. C. 2614, or five hundred and forty-one years after the deluge, and one hundred and ninety-one years after the death of Noah, in the following order:--“To the sons of Shem was allotted the middle of the earth, namely, Palestine, Syria, Assyria, Samaria, Singar, [or Shinar,] Babel, [or Babylonia,] Persia, and Hegiaz; [Arabia;] to the sons of Ham, Teimen, [or Idumea, Jer. xlix, 7,] Africa, Nigritia, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Scindia, and India; [or India west and east of the river Indus;] to the sons of Japheth, also, Garbia, [the north,] Spain, France, the countries of the Greeks, Sclavonians, Bulgarians, Turks, and Armenians.” In this curious and valuable geographical chart, Armenia, the cradle of the human race, was allotted to Japheth, by right of primogeniture; and Samaria and Babel to the sons of Shem; the usurpation of these regions, therefore, by Nimrod, and of Palestine by Canaan, was in violation of the divine decree. Though the migration of the primitive families began at this time, B. C. 2614, or about five hundred and forty-one years after the deluge, it was a length of time before they all reached their respective destinations. The “seasons,” as well as the “boundaries” of their respective settlements were equally the appointment of God; the nearer countries to the original settlement being planted first, and the remoter in succession. These primitive settlements seem to have been scattered and detached from each other according to local convenience. Even so late as the tenth generation after the flood in Abraham’s days, there were considerable tracts of land in Palestine unappropriated, on which he and his nephew, Lot, freely pastured their cattle without hinderance or molestation. That country was not fully peopled till the fourth generation after, at the exode of the Israelites from Egypt. And Herodotus represents Scythia as an uninhabited desert, until Targitorus planted the first colony there, about a thousand years, at most, before Darius Hystaspes invaded Scythia, or about B. C. 1508. The orderly settlements of the three primitive families are recorded in that most venerable and valuable geographical chart, the tenth chapter of Genesis, in which it is curious to observe how long the names of the first settlers have been preserved among their descendants, even down to the present day:--

1. Japheth, the eldest son of Noah, Gen. x, 21, and his family, are first noticed, Gen. x, 2–5. The name of the patriarch himself was preserved among his Grecian descendants, in the proverb, t pet esßte, older than Japetus, denoting the remotest antiquity. The radical part of the word pet, evidently expresses Japheth. (1.) Gomer, his eldest son, was the father of the Gomerians. These, spreading from the regions north of Armenia and Bactriana, Ezek. xxxviii, 6, extended themselves westward over nearly the whole continent of Europe; still retaining their paternal denomination, with some slight variation, as Cimmerians, in Asia; Cimbri and Umbri, in Gaul and Italy; and Cymri, Cambri, and Cumbri, in Wales and Cumberland at the present day. They are also identified by ancient authors with the Galatæ of Asia Minor, the Gaels, Gauls, and Celtæ, of Europe, who likewise spread from the Euxine Sea, to the Western Ocean; and from the Baltic to Italy southward, and first planted the British Isles. Josephus remarks, that the Galatæ were called Gµae, Gomariani, from their ancestor Gomar. See the numerous authorities adduced in support of the identity of the Gomerians and Celts, by that learned and ingenious antiquary, Faber, in his “Origin of Pagan Idolatry.” Of Gomer’s sons, Ashkenaz appears to have settled on the coasts of the Euxine Sea, which from him seems to have received its primary denomination of e, Axenus, nearly resembling Ashkenaz; but forgetting its etymology in process of time, the Greeks considered it as a compound term in their own language, -, signifying inhospitable; and thence metamorphosed it into -, Eu-xenus, “very hospitable.” His precise settlement is represented in Scripture as contiguous to Armenia, westward; for the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz, are noticed together, Jer. li, 27. Riphat, the second son of Gomer, seems to have given name to the Riphean mountains of the north of Asia; and Togarmah, the third son, may be traced 311in the Trocmi of Strabo, the Trogmi of Cicero, and Trogmades of the council of Chalcedon, inhabiting the confines of Pontus and Cappadocia. (2.) Magog, Tubal, and Mesech, sons of Japhet, are noticed together by Ezekiel, as settled in the north, Ezek. xxxviii, 2, 14, 15. And as the ancestors of the numerous Sclavonic and Tartar tribes, the first may be traced in the Mongogians, Monguls, and Moguls; the second, in the Tobolski, of Siberia; and the third, Mesech, or Mosoc, in the Moschici, Moscow, and Muscovites. (3.) Madai was the father of the Medes, who are repeatedly so denominated in Scripture, 2 Kings xvii, 6; Isa. xiii, 17; Jer. li, 11; Dan. v, 28, &c. (4.) From Javan was descended the Javanians, or e of the Greeks, and the Yavanas of the Hindus. Greece itself is called Javan by Daniel, xi, 2; and the people e by Homer in his “Iliad.” These aboriginal e of Greece are not to be confounded, as is usually the case, with the later e, who invaded and subdued the Javanian territories, and were of a different stock. The accurate Pausanias states, that the name of e, was comparatively modern, while that of e is acknowledged to have been the primitive title of the barbarians who were subdued by the e. Strabo remarks that Attica was formerly called both Ionia and Ias, or Ian; while Herodotus asserts, that the Athenians were not willing to be called e; and he derives the name from , the son of Zuth, descended from Deucalion or Noah. And this Ion is said by Eusebius to have been the ringleader in the building of the tower of Babel, and the first introducer of idol worship, and Sabianism, or adoration of the sun, moon, and stars. This would identify Ion with Nimrod. And the Ionians appear to have been composed of the later colonists, the Palli, Pelasgi, or roving tribes from Asia, Phenicia, and Egypt, who, according to Herodotus, first corrupted the simplicity of the primitive religion of Greece, and who, by the Hindus, were called Yonigas, or worshippers of the yoni or dove. This critical distinction between the Iaones and the Iones, the Yavanas, and the Yonigas, we owe to the sagacity of Faber. Of Javan’s sons, Elishah and Dodon, may be recognized in Elis and Dodona, the oldest settlements of Greece; Kittim, in the Citium of Macedonia, and Chittim, or maritime coasts of Greece and Italy, Num. xxiv, 24; and Tarshish, in the Tarsus of Cilicia, and Tartessus of Spain.

2. Ham and his family are next noticed, Gen. x, 6–20. The name of the patriarch is recorded in the title frequently given to Egypt, “The land of Ham,” Psalm cv, 23, &c. (1.) Of his sons, the first and most celebrated appears to have been Cush, who gave name to the land of Cush, both in Asia and Africa; the former still called Chusistan by the Arabian geographers, and Susiana by the Greeks, and Cusha Dwipa Within, by the Hindus; the other, called Cusha Dwipa Without. And the enterprising Cushim or Cuthim, of Scripture, in Asia and Europe, assumed the title of Getæ, Guiths, and Goths; and of Scuths, Scuits, and Scots; and of Sacas, Sacasenas, and Saxons. The original family settlement of Abraham was “Ur of the Chasdim,” or Chaldees, Gen. xi, 28, who are repeatedly mentioned in Scripture, Isa. xiii, 9; Dan. ix, 1, &c. According to Faber’s ingenious remark, it may more properly be pronounced Chus-dim, signifying Godlike Cushites. It is highly improbable that they were so named from Chesed, Abraham’s nephew, Gen. xxii, 22, who was a mere boy, if born at all, when Abraham left Ur, and was an obscure individual, never noticed afterward. Of Cush’s sons, Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Sabtacha, and Raamah; and the sons of Raamah, Sheba, and Dedan, seem to have settled in Idumea and Arabia, from the similar names of places there; and of his descendants, Nimrod, the mighty hunter, first founded the kingdom of Babylon, and afterward of Assyria, invading the settlements of the Shemites, contrary to the divine decree. His posterity were probably distinguished by the title of Chusdim, Isaiah xxiii, 13. (2.) The second son of Ham was Misr, or Mizraim. He settled in Egypt, whence the Egyptians were universally styled in Scripture, Mizraim, or Mizraites, in the plural form. But the country is denominated in the east, to this day, “the land of Misr;” which, therefore, seems to have been the name of the patriarch himself. The children of Misr, like their father, are denominated in Scripture by the plural number. Of these, the Ludim and Lehabim were probably the Copto-Libyans, Ezek. xxx, 5; the Naphtuhim occupied the sea coast, which by the Egyptians was called Nephthus; whence, probably, originated the name of the maritime god Neptune. The Pathrusim occupied a part of Lower Egypt, called from them Pathros, Isa. xi, 11. The Caphtorim and the Casluhim, whose descendants were the Philistim of Palestine, occupied the district which lies between the delta of the Nile and the southern extremity of Palestine, Deut. ii, 23; Amos ix, 7. (3.) Phut is merely noticed, without any mention of his family. But the tribes of Phut and Lud are mentioned together, with Cush, or Ethiopia, Jer. xlvi, 9; Ezek. xxx, 5; and Jerom notices a district in Libya, called Regio Phutensis, or the land of Phut. (4.) Canaan has been noticed already; and the original extent of the land of Canaan is carefully marked by Moses. Its western border, along the Mediterranean Sea, extended from Sidon, southward, to Gaza; its southern border from thence, eastward, to Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, the cities of the plain, afterward covered by the Dead Sea, or Asphaltite Lake; its eastern border extending from thence northward, to Laish, Dan, or the springs of the Jordan; and its northern border, from thence to Sidon, westward. Of Canaan’s sons, Sidon, the eldest, occupied the north-west corner, and built the town of that name, so early celebrated for her luxury and commerce in Scripture, Judges xviii, 7; 1 Kings v, 6; and by Homer, who calls the Sidonians, pdada, skilled in many arts. And Tyre, so flourishing afterward, though boasting of her own antiquity, Isa. xxiii, 7, is styled, “a daughter of Sidon,” or a colony from thence, 312Isa. v, 12. Heth, his second son, and the Hittites, his descendants appear to have settled in the south, near Hebron, Gen. xxiii, 3–7; and next to them, at Jerusalem, the Jebusites, or descendants of Jebus, both remaining in their original settlements till David’s days; 2 Sam. xi, 3; v, 6–9. Beyond the Jebusites, were settled the Emorites, or Amorites, Num. xiii, 29, who extended themselves beyond Jordan, and were the most powerful of the Canaanite tribes, Gen. xv, 16; Num. xxi, 21, until they were destroyed by Moses and Joshua, with the rest of the devoted nations of Canaan’s family.

3. Shem and his family are noticed last, Gen. x, 21–30. His posterity were confined to middle Asia. (1.) His son Elam appears to have been settled in Elymais, or southern Persia, contiguous to the maritime tract of Chusistan, Dan. viii, 2. (2.) His son Ashur planted the land thence called Assyria, which soon became a province of the Cushite, or Cuthic empire, founded by Nimrod. (3.) Arphaxad, through his grandson, Eber, branched out into the two houses of Peleg and Joktan. Peleg probably remained in Chaldea, or southern Babylonia, at the time of the dispersion; for there we find his grandson, Terah, and his family, settled at “Ur of the Chaldees,” Gen. xi, 31. Of the numerous children of Joktan, it is said by Moses, that “their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east.” Faber is inclined to believe that they were the ancestors of the great body of the Hindus, who still retain a lively tradition of the patriarch Shem, Shama, or Sharma; and that the land of Ophir, abounding in gold, so called from one of the sons of Joktan, lay beyond the Indus, eastward. (4.) Lud was probably the father of the Ludim or Lydians, of Asia Minor; for this people had a tradition that they were descended from Lud or Lydus, according to Josephus. (5.) The children of Aram planted the fertile country north of Babylonia, called Aram Naharaim, “Aram between the two rivers,” the Euphrates and the Tigris, thence called by the Greeks, Mesopotamis, Gen. xxiv, 10, and Padan Aram, the level country of Aram, Gen. xxv, 20. This country of Aram is frequently rendered Syria in Scripture, Judges x, 6; Hosea xii, 12, &c; which is not to be confounded with Palestine Syria, into which they afterward spread themselves, still retaining their original name of µ, or Arameans, noticed by Homer in his “Iliad.”

4. Upon this distribution of Noah’s posterity we shall only observe, that the Deity presided over all their counsels and deliberations, and that he guided and settled all mankind according to the dictates of his all-comprehending wisdom and benevolence. To this purpose, the ancients themselves, according to Pindar, retained some idea that the dispersion of men was not the effect of chance, but that they had been settled in different countries by the appointment of Providence, Gen. xi, 8, 9; Deut. xxii, 8. This dispersion, and that confusion of languages with which it originated, was intended, by the counsel of an all-wise Providence, to counteract and defeat the scheme which had been projected by the descendants of Noah, for maintaining their union, implied in their proposing to make themselves a name, , which Schultens, in Job i, 1, derives from the Arabic verb , or , to be high elevated, or eminent. By this scheme, which seems to have been a project of state policy, for keeping all men together under the present chiefs and their successors, a great part of the earth must, for a long time, have been uninhabited, and overrun with wild beasts. The bad effects which this project would have had upon the minds, the morals, and religion of mankind, was, probably, the chief reason why God interposed to frustrate it as soon as it was formed. It had manifestly a direct tendency to tyranny, oppression, and slavery. Whereas in forming several independent governments by a small body of men, the ends of government, and the security of liberty and property, would be much better attended to, and more firmly established; which, in fact, was really the case; if we may judge of the rest by the constitution of one of the most eminent, the kingdom of Egypt, Gen. xlvii, 15–27. The Egyptians were masters of their persons and property, till they sold them to Pharaoh for bread; and then their servitude amounted to no more than the fifth part of the produce of the country, as an annual tax payable to the king. By this event, considered as a wise dispensation of Providence, bounds were set to the contagion of wickedness; evil example was confined, and could not extend its influence beyond the limits of one country; nor could wicked projects be carried on, with universal concurrence, by many small colonies, separated by the natural boundaries of mountains, rivers, barren deserts, and seas, and hindered from associating together by a variety of languages, unintelligible to each other. Moreover, in this dispersed state, they could, whenever God pleased, be made reciprocal checks upon each other, by invasions and wars, which would weaken the power, and humble the pride, of corrupt and vicious communities. This dispensation was, therefore, properly calculated to prevent a second universal degeneracy; God dealing in it with men as rational agents, and adapting his scheme to their state and circumstances.

DIVORCE. As the ancient Hebrews paid a stipulated price for the privilege of marrying, they seemed to consider it the natural consequence of making a payment of that kind, that they should be at liberty to exercise a very arbitrary power over their wives, and to renounce or divorce them whenever they chose. This state of things, as Moses himself very clearly saw, was not equitable as respected the woman, and was very often injurious to both parties. Finding himself, however, unable to overrule feelings and practices of very ancient standing, he merely annexed to the original institution of marriage a very serious admonition to this effect, viz. that it would be less criminal for a man to desert his father and mother, than without adequate cause to desert 313his wife, Gen. ii, 14, compared with Malachi ii, 11–16. He also laid a restriction upon the power of the husband as far as this, that he would not permit him to repudiate the wife without giving her a bill of divorce. He farther enacted in reference to this subject that the husband might receive the repudiated wife back, in case she had not in the meanwhile been married to another person; but if she had been thus married, she could never afterward become the wife of her first husband; a law, which the faith due to the second husband clearly required, Deut. xxiv, 1–4, compare Jer. iii, 1, and Matt. i, 19; xix, 8. The inquiry, “What should be considered an adequate cause of divorce,” was left by Moses to be determined by the husband himself. He had liberty to divorce her, if he saw in her any thing naked, any thing displeasing or improper, any thing so much at war with propriety, and a source of so much dissatisfaction as to be, in the estimation of the husband, sufficient ground for separation. These expressions, however, were sharply contested as to their meaning in the later times of the Jewish nation. The school of Hillel contended, that the husband might lawfully put away the wife for any cause, even the smallest. The mistake committed by the school of Hillel in taking this ground was, that they confounded moral and civil law. It is true, as far as the Mosaic statute or the civil law was concerned, the husband had a right thus to do; but it is equally clear, that the ground of just separation must have been, not a trivial, but a prominent and important one, when it is considered, that he was bound to consult the rights of the woman, and was amenable to his conscience and his God. The school of Shammai explained the phrase, nakedness of a thing, to mean actual adultery. Our Lord agreed with the school of Shammai as far as this, that the ground of divorce should be one of a moral nature, and not less than adultery; but he does not appear to have agreed with them in their opinion in respect to the Mosaic statute. On the contrary, he denied the equity of that statute, and in justification of Moses maintained, that he permitted divorces for causes below adultery, only in consequence of the hardness of the people’s hearts, Matt. v, 31, 32; xviii, 1–9; Mark x, 2–12; Luke xvi, 18. Wives, who were considered the property of their husbands, did not enjoy by the Mosaic statutes a reciprocal right, and were not at liberty to dissolve the matrimonial alliance by giving a bill of divorce to that effect. In the latter periods, however, of the Jewish state, the Jewish matrons, the more powerful of them at least, appear to have imbibed the spirit of the ladies of Rome, and to have exercised in their own behalf the same power that was granted by the Mosaic law only to their husbands, Mark vi, 17–29; x, 12.

DOCETÆ, the advocates of an early heresy, which taught that Christ acted and suffered, not in reality, but in appearance. They were so denominated from de, to appear. See Gnostics.

DOCTORS, or Teachers, of the law, a class of men in great repute among the Jews. They had studied the law of Moses in its various branches, and the numerous interpretations which had been grafted upon it in later times; and, on various occasions, they gave their opinion on cases referred to them for advice. Nicodemus, himself a doctor (ddsa, teacher) of the law, comes to consult Jesus, whom he compliments in the same terms as he was accustomed to receive from his scholars: “Rabbi, we know that thou art ddsa, a competent teacher from God.” Doctors of the law were chiefly of the sect of the Pharisees; but they are sometimes distinguished from that sect, Luke v, 17.

DOG, , an animal well known. By the law of Moses, the dog was declared unclean, and was held in great contempt among the Jews, 1 Sam. xvii, 43; xxiv, 14; 2 Sam. ix, 8; 2 Kings viii, 13. Yet they had them in considerable numbers in their cities. They were not, however, shut up in their houses or courts, but forced to seek their food where they could find it. The Psalmist compares violent men to dogs, who go about the city in the night, prowl about for their food, and growl, and become clamorous if they be not satisfied, Psalm lix, 6, 14, 15. Mr. Harmer has illustrated this by quotations from travellers into the east. The Turks also reckon the dog a filthyfilthy creature, and therefore drive him from their houses; so that with them dogs guard rather the streets and districts, than particular houses, and live on the offals that are thrown abroad. In 1 Sam. xxv, 3, Nabal is said to have been “churlish and evil in his manners; and he was of the house of Caleb;” but Caleb here is not a proper name. Literally, it is, “He was the son of a dog;” and so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic render it,--he was irritable, snappish, and snarling as a dog. The irritable disposition of the dog is the foundation of that saying, “He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears,” Prov. xxvi, 17; that is, he wantonly exposes himself to danger.

In 1 Kings xxi, 23, it is said, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel.” Mr. Bruce, when at Gondar, was witness to a scene in a great measure similar to the devouring of Jezebel by dogs. He says, “The bodies of those killed by the sword were hewn to pieces, and scattered about the streets, being denied burial. I was miserable, and almost driven to despair, at seeing my hunting dogs, twice let loose by the carelessness of my servants, bringing into the court yard the heads and arms of slaughtered men, and which I could no way prevent but by the destruction of the dogs themselves.” He also adds, that upon being asked by the king the reason of his dejected and sickly appearance, among other reasons, he informed him, “it was occasioned by an execution of three men, which he had lately seen; because the hyænas, allured into the streets by the quantity of carrion, would not let him pass by night in safety from the palace; and because the dogs fled into his house, to eat 314pieces of human carcasses at their leisure.” This account illustrates also the readiness of the dogs to lick the blood of Ahab, 1 Kings xxii, 38; in conformity to which is the expression of the Prophet Jeremiah, xv, 3, “I will appoint over them the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear.”

2. The dog was held sacred by the Egyptians. This fact we learn from Juvenal, who complains, in his fifteenth satire,

The testimony of the Latin poet is confirmed by Diodorus, who, in his first book, assures us that the Egyptians highly venerate some animals, both during their life and after their death; and expressly mentions the dog as one object of this absurd adoration. To these witnesses may be added Herodotus, who says, that when a dog expires, all the members of the family to which he belonged worship the carcass; and that, in every part of the kingdom, the carcasses of their dogs are embalmed, and deposited in consecrated ground. The idolatrous veneration of the dog by the Egyptians is shown in the worship of their dog-god Anubis, to whom temples and priests were consecrated, and whose image was borne in all religious ceremonies. Cynopolis, the present Minieh, situated in the lower Thebais, was built in honour of Anubis. The priests celebrated his festivals there with great pomp. “Anubis,” says Strabo, “is the city of dogs, the capital of the Cynopolitan prefecture. These animals are fed there on sacred aliments, and religion has decreed them a worship.” An event, however, related by Plutarch, brought them into considerable discredit with the people. Cambyses, having slain the god Apis, and thrown his body into the field, all animals respected it except the dogs, which alone ate of his flesh. This impiety diminished the popular veneration. Cynopolis was not the only city where incense was burned on the altars of Anubis. He had chapels in almost all the temples. On solemnities, his image always accompanied those of Isis and Osiris. Rome, having adopted the ceremonies of Egypt, the emperor Commodus, to celebrate the Isiac feasts, shaved his head, and himself carried the dog Anubis.

3. In Matt. vii, 6, we have this direction of our Saviour: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they,” the swine, “trample them under their feet, and,” the dogs, “turn again and tear you.” It was customary, not only with the writers of Greece and Rome, but also with the eastern sages, to denote certain classes of men by animals supposed to resemble them among the brutes. Our Saviour was naturally led to adopt the same concise and energetic method. By dogs, which were held in great detestation by the Jews, he intends men of odious character and violent temper; by swine, the usual emblem of moral filth, he means the sensual and profligate; and the purport of his admonition is, that as it is a maxim with the priests not to give any part of the sacrifices to dogs, so it should be a maxim with you not to impart the holy instruction with which you are favoured, to those who are likely to blaspheme and to be only excited by it to rage and persecution. It is, however, a maxim of prudence not of cowardice; and is to be taken along with other precepts of our Lord, which enjoin the publication of truth, at the expense of ease and even life.

DORT, Synod of. See Synods.

DOVE, . This beautiful genus of birds is very numerous in the east. In the wild state they generally build their nests in the holes or clefts of rocks, or in excavated trees; but they are easily taught submission and familiarity with mankind; and, when domesticated, build in structures erected for their accommodation, called “dove-cotes.” They are classed by Moses among the clean birds; and it appears from the sacred as well as other writers, that doves were always held in the highest estimation among the eastern nations. Rosenmuller, in a note upon Bochart, derives the name from the Arabic, where it signifies mildness, gentleness, &c. The dove is mentioned in Scripture as the symbol of simplicity, innocence, gentleness, and fidelity, Hosea vii, 11; Matt. x, 16.

The following extract from Morier’s Persian Travels illustrates a passage in Isaiah: “In the environs of the city, to the westward, near the Zainderood, are many pigeon houses, erected at a distance from habitations, for the sole purpose of collecting pigeons’ dung for manure. They are large round towers, rather broader at the bottom than the top, and crowned by conical spiracles, through which the pigeons descend. Their interior resembles a honey-comb, pierced with a thousand holes, each of which forms a snug retreat for a nest. More care appears to have been bestowed upon their outside than upon that of the generality of the dwelling houses; for they are painted and ornamented. The extraordinary flights of pigeons which I have seen alight upon one of these buildings afford, perhaps, a good illustration for the passage in Isaiah lx, 8: ‘Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows’ Their great numbers, and the compactness of their mass, literally look like a cloud at a distance, and obscure the sun in their passage.”

The first mention of the dove in the Scripture is Genesis viii, 8, 10–12, where Noah sent one from the ark to ascertain if the waters of the deluge had assuaged. She was sent forth thrice. The first time she speedily returned; having, in all probability, gone but a little way from the ark, as she must naturally be terrified at the appearance of the waters. After seven days, being sent out a second time, she returned with an olive leaf plucked off, whereby it became evident that the flood was considerably abated, and had sank below the tops of the trees; and thus relieved the fears and cheered the heart of Noah and his family. And hence the olive branch has ever been among the forerunners 315of peace, and chief of those emblems by which a happy state of renovation and restoration to prosperity has been signified to mankind. At the end of other seven days, the dove, being sent out a third time, returned no more; from which Noah conjectured that the earth was so far drained as to afford sustenance for the birds and fowls; and he therefore removed the covering of the ark, which probably gave liberty to many of the fowls to fly off; and these circumstances afforded him the greater facility for making arrangements for disembarking the other animals. Doves might be offered in sacrifice, when those who were poor could not bring a more costly offering.

DOWRY. See Bride.

DRACHMA. The value of a common drachma was sevenpence, English. A didrachma, or double drachma, made very near half a shekel; and four drachmas made nearly a shekel.

DRAGON. This word is frequently to be met with in our English translation of the Bible. It answers generally to the Hebrew , , ; and these words are variously rendered dragons, serpents, sea-monsters, and whales. The Rev. James Hurdis, in a dissertation relative to this subject, observes, that the word translated “whales,” in Gen. i, 21, occurs twenty-seven times in Scripture; and he attempts, with much ingenuity, to prove that it every where signifies the crocodile. That it sometimes has this meaning, he thinks is clear from Ezekiel xxix, 3: “Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.” For, to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than the crocodile The same argument he draws from Isaiah li, 9: “Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, [Egypt,] and wounded the dragon” Among the ancients the crocodile was the symbol of Egypt, and appears so on Roman coins. Some however have thought the hippopotamus intended; others, one of the larger species of serpents.

DRAUGHTS, stupifying potions. At the time of execution, they gave the malefactor a grain of frankincense in a cup of wine, in order to stupify and render him less sensible of pain. This custom is traced to the charge of the wise man: “Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts,” Prov. xxxiv, 6. The prophet makes an allusion to the powerful effects of this stupifying draught, in that prediction which announces the judgments of God upon the empire of Babylon: “Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them,” Jer. xxv, 15, 16. The Jews, according to the custom of their country, gave our Lord wine mingled with myrrh at his crucifixion. See Cross.

DREAMS. The easterns, in particular the Jews, greatly regarded dreams, and applied for their interpretation to those who undertook to explain them. The ancient Greeks and Romans had the same opinion of them, as appears from their most eminent writers. We see the antiquity of this attention to dreams in the history of Pharaoh’s butler and baker, Gen. xl. Pharaoh himself, and Nebuchadnezzar, are instances. God expressly condemned to death all who pretended to have prophetic dreams, and to foretel futurities, even though what they foretold came to pass, if they had any tendency to promote idolatry, Deut. xiii, 1–3. But the people were not forbidden, when they thought they had a significative dream, to address the prophets of the Lord, or the high priest in his ephod, to have it explained. Saul, before the battle of Gilboa, consulted a woman who had a familiar spirit, “because the Lord would not answer him by dreams, nor by prophets,” 1 Sam. xxviii, 6, 7. The Lord himself sometimes discovered his will in dreams, and enabled persons to explain them. He informed Abimelech in a dream, that Sarah was the wife of Abraham, Gen. xx, 3, 6. He showed Jacob the mysterious ladder in a dream, Gen. xxviii, 12, 13; and in a dream an angel suggested to him a means of multiplying his flocks, Genesis xxxi, 11, 12, &c. Joseph was favoured very early with prophetic dreams, whose signification was easily discovered by Jacob, Gen. xxxvii, 5. God said, that he spake to other prophets in dreams, but to Moses face to face. The Midianites gave credit to dreams, as appears from that which a Midianite related to his companion; and from whose interpretation Gideon took a happy omen, Judges vii, 13, 15. The Prophet Jeremiah exclaims against impostors who pretended to have had dreams, and abused the credulity of the people: “They prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him tell it faithfully, saith the Lord,” Jer. xxiii, 25, 28, 29. The Prophet Joel promises from God, that in the reign of the Messiah, the effusion of the Holy Spirit should be so copious, that the old men should have prophetic dreams, and the young men should receive visions, Joel ii, 28.

DRESS. See Habits.

DROMEDARY. This name answers to two words in the original, , and feminine , Isa. lx, 6; Jer. ii, 24; and , Esther viii, 10, “young dromedaries;” probably the name in Persian. The dromedary is a race of camels chiefly remarkable for its prodigious swiftness. The most observable difference between it and the camel is, that it has but one protuberance on the back; and instead of the slow solemn walk to which that animal is accustomed, it will go as far in one day as the camel in three. For this reason it is used to carry messengers where haste is required. The animal is governed by a bridle, which, being usually fastened to a ring fixed in the nose, may very well illustrate the expression, 2 Kings xix, 28, of turning back Sennacherib by putting a hook into his nose; and may farther indicate his swift retreat.

DUST, or ashes, cast on the head was a sign of mourning, Josh. vii, 6: sitting in the 316dust, a sign of affliction, Lam. iii, 29; Isaiah xlvii, 1. The dust also denotes the grave, Gen. iii, 19; Job vii, 21; Psalm xxii, 15. It is put for a great multitude, Gen. xiii, 16; Numbers xxiii, 10. It signifies a low or mean condition, 1 Sam. ii, 8; Nahum iii, 18. To shake or wipe off the dust of a place from one’s feet, marks the renouncing of all intercourse with it in future. God threatens the Jews with rain of dust, &c; Deut. xxviii, 24. An extract from Sir T. Roe’s embassy may cast light on this: “Sometimes, in India, the wind blows very high in hot and dry seasons, raising up into the air a very great height, thick clouds of dust and sand. These dry showers most grievously annoy all those among whom they fall; enough to smite them all with present blindness; filling their eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths too, if not well guarded; searching every place, as well within as without, so that there is not a little key-hole of any trunk or cabinet, if it be not covered, but receives this dust; add to this, that the fields, brooks, and gardens, suffer extremely from these terrible showers.”

2. In almost every part of Asia, those who demand justice against a criminal throw dust upon him, signifying that he deserves to lose his life, and be cast into the grave; and that this is the true interpretation of the action, is evident from an imprecation in common use among the Turks and Persians, “Be covered with earth!” “Earth be upon thy head.” We have two remarkable instances of casting dust recorded in Scripture: the first is that of Shimei, who gave vent to his secret hostility to David, when he fled before his rebellious son, by throwing stones at him, and casting dust, 2 Sam. xvi, 13. It was an ancient custom, in those warm and arid countries, to lay the dust before a person of distinction, and particularly before kings and princes, by sprinkling the ground with water. To throw dust into the air while a person was passing, was therefore an act of great disrespect; to do so before a sovereign prince, an indecent outrage. But it is clear that Shimei meant more than disrespect and outrage to an afflicted king, whose subject he was: he intended to signify by that action, that David was unfit to live, and that the time was at last arrived to offer him a sacrifice to the ambition and vengeance of the house of Saul. This view of his conduct is confirmed by the behaviour of the Jews to the Apostle Paul, when they seized him in the temple, and had nearly succeeded in putting him to death: they cried out, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live; and as they cried out and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle,” Acts xxii, 23. A great similarity appears between the conduct of the Jews on this occasion, and the behaviour of the peasants in Persia, when they go to court to complain of the governors, whose oppressions they can no longer endure. They carry their complaints against their governors by companies, consisting of several hundreds, and sometimes of a thousand; they repair to that gate of the palace nearest to which their prince is most likely to be, where they set themselves to make the most horrid cries, tearing their garments, and throwing dust into the air, and demanding justice. The king, upon hearing these cries, sends to know the occasion of them: the people deliver their complaints in writing, upon which he informs them that he will commit the cognizance of the affair to such a one as he names; and in consequence of this, justice is usually obtained.