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MOAB; MOABITES

mo'-ab, mo'-ab-its (Moab, mo'abh, Moabite Stone, M-'-B; Greek (Septuagint) Moab, he Moabeitis, Moabitis; Moabite, mo'abhi; Moabites, bene mo'abh):

1. The Land:

Moab was the district East of the Dead Sea, extending from a point some distance North of it to its southern end. The eastern boundary was indefinite, being the border of the desert which is irregular. The length of the territory was about 50 miles and the average width about 30. It is a high tableland, averaging some 3,000 ft. above the level of the Mediterranean and 4,300 ft. above that of the Dead Sea. The aspect of the land, as one looks at it from the western side of the Dead Sea, is that of a range of mountains with a very precipitous frontage, but the elevation of this ridge above the interior is very slight. Deep chasms lead down from the tableland to the Dead Sea shore, the principal one being the gorge of the river Arnon, which is about 1,700 ft. deep and 2 or more miles in width at the level of the tableland, but very narrow at the bottom and with exceedingly precipitous banks. About 13 miles back from the mouth of the river the gorge divides, and farther back it subdivides, so that several valleys are formed of diminishing depth as they approach the desert border. These are referred to in Nu 21:14 as the "valleys of the Arnon." The "valley of Zered" (Nu 21:12), which was on the southern border, drops down to the southern end of the Dead Sea, and although not so long or deep as the Arnon, is of the same nature in its lower reaches, very difficult to cross, dividing into two branches, but at a point much nearer the sea. The stream is not so large as the Arnon, but is quite copious, even in summer. These gorges have such precipitous sides that it would be very difficult for an army to cross them, except in their upper courses near the desert where they become shallow. The Israelites passed them in that region, probably along the present Hajj road and the line of the Mecca Railway. The tableland is fertile but lacks water. The fountains and streams in the valleys and on the slopes toward the Dead Sea are abundant, but the uplands are almost destitute of flowing water. The inhabitants supply themselves by means of cisterns, many of which are ancient, but many of those used in ancient times are ruined. The population must have been far greater formerly than now. The rainfall is usually sufficient to mature the crops, although the rain falls in winter only. The fertility of the country in ancient times is indicated by the numerous towns and villages known to have existed there, mentioned in Scripture and on the Moabite Stone, the latter giving some not found elsewhere. The principal of these were: Ar (Nu 21:15); Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Nebo (Nu 32:3); Beth-peor (Dt 3:29); Beth-diblaim, Bozrah, Kerioth (Jer 48:22-24); Kir (Isa 15:1); Medeba, Elealeh, Zoar (Isa 15:2,4,5); Kirheres (Isa 16:11); Sibmah (Josh 13:19); in all, some 45 place-names in Moab are known, most of the towns being in ruins. Kir of Moab is represented in the modern Kerak, the most important of all and the government center of the district. Madeba now represents the ancient Medeba, and has become noted for the discovery of a medieval map of Palestine, in mosaic, of considerable archaeological value. Rabbath-moab and Heshbon (modern Rabba and Hesban) are miserable villages, and the country is subject to the raids of the Bedouin tribes of the neighboring desert, which discourages agriculture. But the land is still good pasture ground for cattle and sheep, as in ancient times (Nu 32:3,4).

2. The People:

The Moabites were of Semitic stock and of kin to the Hebrews, as is indicated by their descent from Lot, the nephew of Abraham (Gen 19:30-37), and by their language which is practically the same as the Hebrew. This is clear from the inscription on the Moabite Stone, a monument of Mesha, king of Moab, erected about 850 BC, and discovered among the ruins of Dibon in 1868. It contains 34 lines of about 9 words each, written in the old Phoenician and Hebrew characters, corresponding to the Siloam inscription and those found in Phoenicia, showing that it is a dialect of the Semitic tongue prevailing in Palestine. The original inhabitants of Moab were the Emim (Dt 2:10), "a people great .... and tall, as the Anakim." When these were deposed by the Moabites we do not know. The latter are not mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna Letters and do not appear on the Egyptian monuments before the 14th century BC, when they seem to be referred to under the name of Ruten, or Luten or Lotan, i.e. Lot (Paton, Syria and Pal); Muab appears in a list of names on a monument of Rameses III of the XXth Dynasty. The country lay outside the line of march of the Egyptian armies, and this accounts for the silence of its monuments in regard to them.

3. Religion:

The chief deity of Moab was Chemosh (kemosh), frequently mentioned in the Old Testament and on the Moabite Stone, where King Mesha speaks of building a high place in his honor because he was saved by him from his enemies. He represents the oppression of Moab by Omri as the result of the anger of Chemosh, and Mesha made war against Israel by command of Chemosh. He was the national god of Moab, as Molech was of Ammon, and it is pretty certain that he was propitiated by human sacrifices (2 Ki 3:27). But he was not the only god of Moab, as is clear from the account in Nu 25, where it is also clear that their idolatrous worship was corrupt. They had their Baalim like the nations around, as may be inferred from the place-names compounded with Baal, such as Bamoth-baal, Beth-baal-meon and Baal-peor.

4. History:

We know scarcely anything of the history of the Moabites after the account of their origin in Gen 19 until the time of the exodus. It would seem, however, that they had suffered from the invasions of the Amorites, who, under their king Sihon, had subdued the northern part of Moab as far as the Arnon (Nu 21:21-31). This conquest was no doubt a result of the movement of the Amorites southward, when they were pressed by the great wave of Hittite invasion that overran Northern Syria at the end of the 15th and the early part of the 14th centuries BC. The Amorites were forced to seek homes in Palestine, and it would seem that a portion of them crossed the Jordan and occupied Northern Moab, and here the Israelites found them as they approached the Promised Land. They did not at first disturb the Moabites in the South, but passed around on the eastern border (Dt 2:8,9) and came into conflict with the Amorites in the North (Nu 21:21-26), defeating them and occupying the territory (Nu 21:31-32). But when Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, saw what a powerful people was settling on his border, he made alliance with the Midianites against them and called in the aid of Balaam, but as he could not induce the latter to curse them he refrained from attacking the Israelites (Nu 22; 24). The latter, however, suffered disaster from the people of Moab through their intercourse with them (Nu 25). Some time before the establishment of the kingdom in Israel the Midianites overran Moab, as would appear from the passage in Gen 36:35, but the conquest was not permanent, for Moab recovered its lost territory and became strong enough to encroach upon Israel across the Jordan. Eglon of Moab oppressed Israel with the aid of Ammon and Amalek (Jdg 3:13-14), but Eglon was assassinated by Ehud, and the Moabite yoke was cast off after 18 years. Saul smote Moab, but did not subdue it (1 Sam 14:47), for we find David putting his father and mother under the protection of the king of Moab when persecuted by Saul (1 Sam 22:3,4). But this friendship between David and Moab did not continue. When David became king he made war upon Moab and completely subjugated it (2 Sam 8:2). On the division of the kingdom between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the latter probably obtained possession of Moab (1 Ki 12:20), but it revolted and Omri had to reconquer it (M S), and it was tributary to Ahab (2 Ki 1:1). It revolted again in the reign of Ahaziah (2 Ki 1:1; 3:5), and Moab and Ammon made war on Jehoshaphat and Mt. Seir and destroyed the latter, but they afterward fell out among themselves and destroyed each other (2 Ch 20). Jehoshaphat and Jehoram together made an expedition into Moab and defeated the Moabites with great slaughter (2 Ki 3). But Mesha, king of Moab, was not subdued (2 Ki 3:27), and afterward completely freed his land from the dominion of Israel (M S). This was probably at the time when Israel and Judah were at war with Hazael of Damascus (2 Ki 8:28,29). Bands of Moabites ventured to raid the land of Israel when weakened by the conflict with Hazael (2 Ki 13:20), but Moab was probably subdued again by Jeroboam II (2 Ki 14:25), which may be the disaster to Moab recounted in Isa 15. After Mesha we find a king of the name of Salamanu and another called Chemosh-nadab, the latter being subject to Sargon of Assyria. He revolted against Sennacherib, in alliance with other kings of Syria and Palestine and Egypt, but was subdued by him, and another king, Mutsuri, was subject to Esarhaddon. These items come to us from the Assyrian monuments. When Babylon took the place of Assyria in the suzerainty, Moab joined other tribes in urging Judah to revolt but seems to have come to terms with Nebuchadnezzar before Jerusalem was taken, as we hear nothing of any expedition of that king against her. On the war described in Judith, in which Moab (1:12, etc.) plays a part.

See JUDITH .

At a later date Moab was overrun by the Nabathean Arabs who ruled in Petra and extended their authority on the east side of Jordan even as far as Damascus (Josephus, Ant, XIII, xv, 1,2). The Moabites lost their identity as a nation and were afterward confounded with the Arabs, as we see in the statement of Josephus (XIII , xiii, 5), where he says that Alexander (Janneus) overcame the Arabians, such as the Moabites and the Gileadites. Alexander built the famous stronghold of Macherus in Moab, on a hill overlooking the Dead Sea, which afterward became the scene of the imprisonment and tragical death of John the Baptist (Josephus, BJ, VII, vi, 2; Ant, XVIII, v, 2; Mk 6:21-28). It was afterward destroyed by the Romans. Kir became a fortress of the Crusaders under the name of Krak (Kerak), which held out against the Moslems until the time of Saladin, who captured it in 1188 AD.

LITERATURE.

Commentaries on the passages in the Old Testament relating to Moab, and histories of Israel; Paton, Early History of Syria and Palestine; Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, especially Assyria and Babylonia; Conder, Heth and Moab; G. A. Smith, HGHL; the Moabite Stone; Josephus.

H. Porter


MOABITE STONE

A monument erected at Dibon (Dhiban) by Mesha, king of Moab (2 Ki 3:4,5), to commemorate his successful revolt from Israel and his conquest of Israelite territory. It was discovered, August 19, 1868, by a German missionary, V. Klein, who unfortunately took neither copy nor squeeze of it. It was 3 ft. 10 inches high and 2 ft. broad, with a semicircular top. The Berlin Museum entered into negotiations for the purchase of it, but while these were proceeding slowly, M. Clermont-Ganneau, then dragoman of the French consulate at Jerusalem, sent agents to take squeezes and tempt the Arabs to sell it for a large sum of money. This led to interference on the part of the Turkish officials, with the result that in 1869 the Arabs lighted a fire under the Stone, and by pouring cold water on it broke it into pieces which they carried away as charms. M. Clermont-Ganneau, however, succeeded in recovering a large proportion of these, and with the help of the squeezes was able to rewrite the greater part of the inscription. The last and most definitive edition of the text was published by Professors Smend and Socin in 1886 from a comparison of the fragments of the original (now in the Louvre) with the squeezes (in Paris and Bale) and photographs.

The following is (with some unimportant corrections) Dr. Neubauer's translation of the inscription, based upon Smend and Socin's text: "(1) I (am) Mesha, son of Chemosh-melech, king of Moab, the Dibonite. (2) My father reigned over Moab 30 years and I reigned (3) after my father. I have made this monument (or high place) for Chemosh at Qorchah, a monument of salvation, (4) for he saved me from all invaders (or kings), and let me see my desire upon all my enemies. Omri (5) was king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days, for Chemosh was angry with his (6) land. His son (Ahab) followed him and he also said: I will oppress Moab. In my days (Chemosh) said: (7) I will see (my desire) on him and his house, and Israel surely shall perish for ever. Omri took the land of (8) Medeba (Nu 21:30), and (Israel) dwelt in it during his days and half the days of his son, altogether 40 years. But Chemosh (gave) it back (9) in my days. I built Baal-Meon (Josh 13:17) and made therein the ditches (or wells); I built (10) Kirjathaim (Nu 32:37). The men of Gad dwelt in the land of Ataroth (Nu 32:3) from of old, and the king of Israel built there (11) (the city of) Ataroth; but I made war against the city and took it. And I slew all the (people of) (12) the city, for the pleasure of Chemosh and of Moab, and I brought back from them the Arel ('-r-'-l of Dodah (d-w-d-h) and bore (13) him before Chemosh in Qerioth (Jer 48:24). And I placed therein the men of Sharon and the men (14) of Mehereth. And Chemosh said unto me: Go, seize Nebo of Israel and (15) I went in the night and fought against it from the break of dawn till noon; and I took (16) it, slew all of them, 7,000 men and (boys?), women and (girls?), (17) and female slaves, for to Ashtar-Chemosh I devoted them. And I took from thence the Arels ('-r-'-l-y) (18) of Yahweh and bore them before Chemosh. Now the king of Israel had built (19) Jahaz (Isa 15:4), and he dwelt in it while he waged war against me, but Chemosh drove him out from before me. And (20) I took from Moab 200 men, all chiefs, and transported them to Jahaz which I took (21) to add to Dibon. I built Qorchah, the Wall of the Forests and the Wall (22) of the Ophel, and I built its gates and I built its towers. And (23) I built the House of Moloch, and I made sluices for the water-ditches in the midst (24) of the city. And there was no cistern within the city of Qorchah, and I said to all the people: Make for (25) yourselves every man a cistern in his house. And I dug the canals (or conduits) for Qorchah by means of the prisoners (26) from Israel. I built Aroer (Dt 2:36), and I made the road in Arnon. And (27) I built Beth-Bamoth (Nu 26:19) for it was destroyed. I built Bezer (Dt 4:43), for in ruins (28) (it was. And all the chiefs?) of Dibon were 50, for all Dibon is loyal, and I (29) placed 100 (chiefs?) in the cities which I added to the land; I built (30) (Beth)-Mede(b)a (Nu 21:30) and Beth-diblathaim (Jer 48:22), and Beth-Baal-Meon (Jer 48:23), and transported the shepherds (?) (31) .... (with) the flock(s) of the land. Now in Choronaim (Isa 15:5) there dwelt (the children?) .... (32) .... (and) Chemosh said unto me: Go down, make war upon Choronaim. So I went down (and made war (33) upon the city, and took it, and) Chemosh dwelt in it during my days. And I went up (?) from thence; I made .... (34) ... And I .... "

The Biblical character of the language of the inscription will be noticed as well as the use of "forty" to signify an indefinite period of time. As in Israel, no goddess seems to have been worshipped in Moab, since the goddess Ashtoreth is deprived of the feminine suffix, and is identified with the male Chemosh (Ashtar-Chemosh). Dodah appears to have been a female divinity worshipped by the side of Yahweh; the root of the name is the same as that of David and the Carthaginian Dido. The Arels were "the champions" of the deity (Assyrian qurart), translated "lion-like men" in the King James Version (2 Sam 23:20; compare Isa 33:7). There was an Ophel in the Moabite capital as well as at Jerusalem.

The alphabet of the inscription is an early form of the Phoenician, and resembles that of the earliest Greek inscriptions. The words are divided from one another by dots, and the curved forms of some of the letters (b, k, l, margin, n) presuppose writing with ink upon papyrus, parchment or potsherds.

The revolt of Mesha took place after Ahab's death (2 Ki 3:5). At the battle of Qarqar in 854 BC, when the Syrian kings were defeated by Shalmaneser II, no mention is made of Moab, as it was included in Israel. It would seem from the inscription, however, that Medeba had already been restored to Mesha, perhaps in return for the regular payment of his tribute of 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams with their wool (2 Ki 3:4).

LITERATURE.

Clermont-Ganneau, La stele de Mesa, 1870; Ginsburg, Moabite Stone, 1871; R. Sinend and A. Socin, Die Inschrift des Konigs Mesa von Moab, 1886; A. Neubauer in Records of the Past, 2nd series, II, 1889; Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik, 1898, 4-83, 415.

A. H. Sayce


MOABITESS

mo'-ab-it-es, mo-ab-i'-tes (mo'abhiyah): A woman, or in plural women, of Moab. The term is applied to Ruth (1:22; 2:2,6,21; 4:5,10); to some of Solomon's wives (1 Ki 11:1); and to Shimrith, whose son shared in the murder of King Joash (2 Ch 24:26).

See MOAB .


MOADIAH

mo-a-di'-a.

See MAADIAH .


MOCHMUR, THE BROOK

mok'-mur, ho cheimarrhos Mochmour): The torrent bed in a valley on which stood Chusi, not far from Ekrebel (Judith 7:18). The latter may be identified with `Aqrabeh, East of Nablus. Wady Makhfuriyeh runs to the South of `Aqrabeh, and probably represents the ancient Mochmur.


MOCK; MOCKER; MOCKING

mok, mok'er, mok'-ing (hathal, la`agh, empaizo): To mock is the translation of hathal, "to play upon," "mock," "deride" (Jdg 16:10,13,15; 1 Ki 18:27, "Elijah mocked them"; Job 13:9 twice, the Revised Version (British and American) "deceiveth," "deceive," margin "mocketh," "mock"); of la`agh, "to stammer" or "babble in mimicry," "to mock" or "scorn" (2 Ch 30:10; Neh 4:1; Job 11:3; 21:3; Prov 1:26; 17:5; 30:17; Jer 20:7). Other words are tsachaq, "to laugh," etc. (Gen 19:14; 21:9;, 39:14,17); qalac, "to call out," or "cry after," "to scoff" or "mock at" (2 Ki 2:23; Ezek 22:5); sachaq, "to laugh," "mock" (Job 39:22; Lam 1:7); luts, "to scorn" (Prov 14:9); sechoq, "laughter," "derision" (Job 12:4); empaizo, "to treat as a child," "mock" (Mt 2:16; 20:19; 27:29,31,41; Lk 14:29, etc.); diachleuazo, "to mock," "laugh," etc. (Acts 2:13; 17:32); mukterizo, "to sneer at," "mock," literally, "to turn up the nose" (Gal 6:7, "God is not mocked," "will not let himself be mocked"); epigelao, "laugh" (Job 2:8; 1 Macc 7:34; compare 2 Macc 7:39; 8:17).

Mocker, hathulim, "deceivers," "mockers" (Job 17:2); luts (Prov 20:1; Isa 28:22 the King James Version); la`egh, "stammering," "mocking" (Ps 35:16; compare Isa 28:11); sachaq (Jer 15:17); empaiktes, "a mocker," "scoffer," literally, "sporting as children" (Jude 1:18; compare 2 Pet 3:3).

Mocking is the translation of qallacah "mocking," "derision" (Ezek 22:4); of empaigmos the Septuagint for qallacah) (Heb 11:36; The Wisdom of Solomon 12:25; Ecclesiasticus 27:28, "mockery"; 2 Macc 7:7, "mocking-stock," the Revised Version (British and American) "the mocking"; 2 Macc 7:10, "made a mocking-stock" (empaizo)); of mokos (Ecclesiasticus 33:6).

For "mocked of" (Job 12:4) the Revised Version (British and American) has "a laughing-stock to"; for "mockers" (Isa 28:22), the English Revised Version "scorner," the American Standard Revised Version "scoffer"; for "the mockers" (Jer 15:17), "them that made merry"; for "scorneth" (Prov 19:28), "mocketh at"; for "As one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?" (Job 13:9), "As one deceiveth a man will ye deceive him?" (margin, "mocketh," "mock"); "mock" for "laugh" (Job 9:23); for "There shall come in the last days scoffers" (2 Pet 3:3), "In the last days (margin, "Greek in the last of the days") mockers shall come with mockery" (empaigmone empaiktai).

W. L. Walker


MODAD, BOOK OF ELDAD AND

See ELDAD AND MODAD ,BOOK OF .


MODERATELY

mod'-er-at-li (litsedhaqah): "Moderately" is the King James Version translation of litsedhaqah, "righteousness" (Joel 2:23, "for he hath given you the former rain moderately," margin "according to righteousness," the Revised Version (British and American) "in just measure," margin "in (or for) righteousness"). In Phil 4:5 the King James Version, toe pieikes is translated moderation: "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand," the Revised Version (British and American) "forbearance," margin "or gentleness"; compare 2 Cor 10:1. The proper meaning of this word has been the subject of considerable discussion; epieikeia is translated "clemency" (Acts 24:4), "gentleness" (of Christ) (2 Cor 10:1); epieikes is "gentle" (1 Tim 3:3; Tit 3:2; Jas 3:17; 1 Pet 2:18).

Trench says (Synonyms of the New Testament, 151): "It expresses exactly that moderation which recognizes the impossibility cleaving to formal law, of anticipating and providing for all cases that will emerge and present themselves to it for decision; which, with this, recognizes the danger that ever waits upon the assertion of legal rights, lest they should be pushed into moral wrongs, lest the `summum jus' should in practice prove the `summa injuria,' which therefore, pushes not its own rights to the uttermost, but going back in part or in the whole from these, rectifies and redresses the injustices of justice. It is thus more truly just than strict justice would have been; no Latin word exactly and adequately renders it; clementia sets forth one side of it, aequitas another, and perhaps modestia (by which the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) translations it in 2 Cor 10:1) a third; but the word is wanting which should set forth all these excellences reconciled in a single and higher one." Its archetype and pattern, he points out, is found in God, who does not stand upon or assert strict rights in His relations to men.

Lightfoot has "forbearance": "Let your gentle and forbearing spirit be recognized by all men. The judgment is drawing nigh." Hastings prefers "considerateness" or "sweet reasonableness" (HDB, III, 413); " `Gentleness' and `forbearance' are too passive. The `considerateness' of the Bible, whether applied to God or man, is an active virtue. It is the Spirit of the Messiah Himself, who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, and it is the spirit of every follower who realizes that `the Lord is at hand.' " The want of this "considerateness" too often mars our religious life and spoils its influence.

W. L. Walker


MODERATION

mod-er-a'-shun (to epieikes): The word occurs once in the King James Version, Phil 4:5.


MODIN

mo'-din (Modeein, Modein, Modeeim, and other forms; in the Talmud it is called modhi`im, and modhi`ith (Neubauer, Geographie du Talmud, 99)): This place owes its interest to the part it played in the history of the Maccabees. It was the ancestral home of their family (1 Macc 2:17,70). Hither Mattathias, a priest of the sons of Joarib, retired when he had seen with a burning heart "the blasphemies that were committed in Judah and in Jerus" under the orders of Antiochus Epiphanes. But the king's officer followed him, and by offers of the king's friendship and great rewards sought to seduce the people into idolatry. This only fed the indignation of Mattathias, and when a Jew went forward to sacrifice, Mattathias slew him on the altar together with the king's officer. From such a step there could be no going back. Thus began the patriotic enterprise which, led by the old priest's heroic sons, was destined to make illustrious the closing days of the nation's life (1 Macc 2:1 ff; Ant, VI, i, 2; BJ, I, i, 3). Mattathias, his wife and sons were all buried in Modin (1 Macc 2:70; 9:19; 13:25-30; Ant, XII, xi, 2; XIII, vi, 6). Near Modin Judas pitched his camp, whence issuing by night with the watchword "Victory is God's," he and a chosen band of warriors overwhelmed the army of Antiochus Eupator (2 Macc 13:14). In Modin Judas and John, the sons of Simon, slept before the battle in which they defeated Cendebaeus (1 Macc 16:4).

Of the impressive monument erected by Simon over the tombs of his parents and brethren Stanley (History of the Jewish Church, III, 318) gives the following account: "It was a square structure surrounded by colonnades of monolith pillars, of which the front and back were of white polished stone. Seven pyramids were erected by Simon on the summit, for the father and mother and four brothers who now lay there, with the seventh for himself when his time should come. On the faces of the monuments were bas-reliefs, representing the accouterments of sword and spear and shield `for an eternal memorial' of their many battles. There were also sculptures of ships--no doubt to record their interest in that long seaboard of the Philistine coast, which they were the first to use for their country's good. A monument at once so Jewish in idea and so Gentilein execution was worthy of the combination of patriotic fervor and high philosophic enlargement of soul which raised the Maccabean heroes so high above their age." Guerin (La Samarie, II, 401; Galilee, I, 47) thought he had discovered the remains of this monument at Khirbet el-Gharbawi near Medyeh, in 1870. In this, however, he was mistaken, the remains being of Christian origin.

Various identifications have been proposed. Coba, about 6 miles West of Jerusalem, was for a time generally accepted. Robinson (BR, III, 151 f) suggested LaTrun. There is now a consensus of opinion in favor of el-Medyeh, a village to the East of Wady Mulaki, 13 miles West of Bethel. It occupies a strong position in the hills 6 miles East of Lydda, thus meeting the condition of Eusebius, Onomasticon, which places it near Lydda. The identification was suggested by Dr. Sandreczki of Jerusalem in 1869. From el-Medyeh itself the sea is not visible; but to the South rises a rocky height, er-Ras, which commands a wide view, including the plain and the sea. The latter is 16 miles distant. If the monument of Simon stood on er-Ras, which from the rock cuttings seems not improbable, it would be seen very clearly by overlooking from the sea, especially toward sunset (1 Macc 13:29). About 1/4 mile West of el-Medyeh are tombs known as Qubur el-Yehud, one bearing the name of Sheikh el-Gharbawi, whose name attaches to the ruins. This is the tomb referred to above.

W. Ewing


MOETH

mo'-eth (Moeth): Called "son of Sabannus," one of the Levites to whom, with the priest Mermoth, the silver and gold brought by Ezra from Babylon were committed (1 Esdras 8:63) = "Noadiah" of Ezr 8:33, but there styled "son of Binnui."


MOLADAH

mol'-a-da, mo-la'-da (moladhah; Molada): A place in the far south (Negebh) of Judah, toward Edom (Josh 15:26), reckoned to Simeon (Josh 19:2; 1 Ch 4:28). It was repopulated after the captivity (Neh 11:26). It is mentioned always in close proximity to Beersheba. Moladah is probably identical with Malatha, a city in Idumea to which Agrippa at one time withdrew himself (Josephus, Ant, XVIII, vi, 2). The site of this latter city has by Robinson and others been considered to be the ruins and wells of Tell el-Milch, some 13 miles to the East of Beersheba and some 7 miles Southwest of Arad. The chief difficulty is the statement of Eusebius and Jerome that Malatha was "by Jattir," i.e. `Attir; if this is correct the Tell el-Milch is impossible, as it is 10 miles from `Attir, and we have no light at all on the site. See SALT ,CITY OF . For Tell el-Milch see PEF ,III , 415-16, ShXXV .

E. W. G. Masterman


MOLE

mol ((1) tinshemeth, the King James Version "mole," the Revised Version (British and American) "chameleon"; Septuagint aspalax = spalax, "mole," Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) talpa, "mole" (Lev 11:30); (2) choledh, English Versions of the Bible "weasel"; Septuagint gale, "weasel" or "pole-cat"; compare Arabic khuld, "mole-rat" (Lev 11:29); (3) chaphar-peroth, English Versions of the Bible "moles"; from chaphar, "to dig"; compare Arabic chafar, "to dig," and perah, "mole" or "rat," for pe'erah, from the root pa'ar, "to dig"; compare Arabic fa'rat, or farat, "rat," "mouse," from the root fa'ar, "to dig"; Septuagint tois mataiois, "vain, idle, or profane persons" (Isa 2:20)): (1) Tinshemeth is the last of 8 unclean "creeping things" in Lev 11:29,30. The word occurs also in Lev 11:18 and Dt 14:16, translated the King James Version "swan," the Revised Version (British and American) "horned owl," Septuagint porphurion, "coot" or "heron." See CHAMELEON . (2) Choledh is the first in the same list. The word occurs nowhere else, and is translated "weasel" in English Versions of the Bible, but comparison with the Arabic khuld has led to the suggestion that "mole-rat" would be a better translation. See WEASEL . (3) In Isa 2:20, "In that day men shall cast away their idols .... to the moles and to the bats," chaphar-peroth, variously written as one word or two, is translated "moles" in English Versions of the Bible, but has given rise to much conjecture.

The European "mole," Talpa europea, is extensively distributed in the temperate parts of Europe and Asia, but is absent from Syria and Palestine, its place being taken by the mole-rat, Spalax typhlus. The true mole belongs to the Insectivora, and feeds on earth-worms and insect larvae, but in making its tunnels and nests, it incidentally injures gardens and lawns. The mole-rat belongs to the Rodentia, and has teeth of the same general type as those of a rat or squirrel, large, chisel-shaped incisors behind which is a large vacant space, no canines, and praemolars and molars with grinding surfaces. It is larger than the mole, but of the same color, and, like the mole, is blind. It makes tunnels much like those of the mole. It is herbivorous and has been observed to seize growing plants and draw them down into its hole. In one of its burrows a central chamber has been found filled with entire plants of the chummuc or chick-pea, and two side chambers containing pods plucked from the plants in the central chamber. While the mole digs with its powerful and peculiarly shaped front feet, the mole-rat digs with its nose, its feet being normal in shape.

See LIZARD .

Alfred Ely Day


MOLECH; MOLOCH

mo'-lek, mo'-lok (ha-molekh, always with the article, except in 1 Ki 11:7; Septuagint ho Moloch, sometimes also Molchom, Melchol; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Moloch):

1. The Name

2. The Worship in Old Testament History

3. The Worship in the Prophets

4. Nature of the Worship

5. Origin and Extent of the Worship

LITERATURE

1. The Name:

The name of a heathen divinity whose worship figures largely in the later history of the kingdom of Judah. As the national god of the Ammonites, he is known as "Milcom" (1 Ki 11:5,7), or "Malcam" ("Malcan" is an alternative reading in 2 Sam 12:30,31; compare Jer 49:1,3; Zeph 1:5, where the Revised Version margin reads "their king"). The use of basileus, and archon, as a translation of the name by the Septuagint suggests that it may have been originally the Hebrew word for "king," melekh. Molech is obtained from melekh by the substitution of the vowel points of Hebrew bosheth, signifying "shame." From the obscure and difficult passage, Am 5:26, the Revised Version (British and American) has removed "your Moloch" and given "your king," but Septuagint had here translated "Moloch," and from the Septuagint it found its way into the Acts (7:43), the only occurrence of the name in the New Testament.

2. The Worship in Old Testament History:

In the Levitical ordinances delivered to the Israelites by Moses there are stern prohibitions of Molech-worship (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5). Parallel to these prohibitions, although the name of the god is not mentioned, are those of the Deuteronomic Code where the abominations of the Canaanites are forbidden, and the burning of their sons and daughters in the fire (to Molech) is condemned as the climax of their wickedness (Dt 12:31; 18:10-13). The references to Malcam, and to David's causing the inhabitants of Rabbath Ammon to pass through the brick kiln (2 Sam 12:30,31), are not sufficiently clear to found upon, because of the uncertainty of the readings. Solomon, under the influence of his idolatrous wives, built high places for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of Ammon. See CHEMOSH . Because of this apostasy it was intimated by the prophet Ahijah, that the kingdom was to be rent out of the hand of Solomon, and ten tribes given to Jeroboam (1 Ki 11:31-33). These high places survived to the time of Josiah, who, among his other works of religious reformation, destroyed and defiled them, filling their places with the bones of men (2 Ki 23:12-14). Molech-worship had evidently received a great impulse from Ahaz, who, like Ahab of Israel, was a supporter of foreign religions (2 Ki 16:12 ff). He also "made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations, whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel" (2 Ki 16:3). His grandson Manasseh, so far from following in the footsteps of his father Hezekiah, who had made great reforms in the worship, reared altars for Baal, and besides other abominations which he practiced, made his son to pass through the fire (2 Ki 21:6). The chief site of this worship, of which Ahaz and Manasseh were the promoters, was Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom, or, as it is also called, the Valley of the Children, or of the Son of Hinnom, lying to the Southwest of Jerusalem (see GEHENNA ). Of Josiah's reformation it is said that "he defiled Topheth .... that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech" (2 Ki 23:10).

3. The Worship in the Prophets:

Even Josiah's thorough reformation failed to extirpate the Molech-worship, and it revived and continued till the destruction of Jerusalem, as we learn from the prophets of the time. From the beginning, the prophets maintained against it a loud and persistent protest. The testimony of Amos (1:15; 5:26) is ambiguous, but most of the ancient versions for malkam, "their king," in the former passage, read milkom, the national god of Ammon (see Davidson, in the place cited.). Isaiah was acquainted with Topheth and its abominations (Isa 30:33; 57:5). Over against his beautiful and lofty description of spiritual religion, Micah sets the exaggerated zeal of those who ask in the spirit of the Molech-worshipper: "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Mic 6:6 ff). That Molech-worship had increased in the interval may account for the frequency and the clearness of the references to it in tile later Prophets. In Jeremiah we find the passing of sons and daughters through the fire to Molech associated with the building of "the high places of Baal, which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom" (32:35; compare 7:31 ff; 19:5 ff). In his oracle against the children of Ammon, the same prophet, denouncing evil against their land, predicts (almost in the very words of Amos above) that Malcam shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together (Jer 49:1,3). Ezekiel, speaking to the exiles in Babylon, refers to the practice of causing children to pass through the fire to heathen divinities as long established, and proclaims the wrath of God against it (Ezek 16:20 f; 20:26,31; 23:37). That this prophet regarded the practice as among the "statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live" (Ezek 20:25) given by God to His people, by way of deception and judicial punishment, as some hold, is highly improbable and inconsistent with the whole prophetic attitude toward it. Zephaniah, who prophesied to the men who saw the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah, denounces God's judgments upon the worshippers of false gods (Zeph 1:5 f). He does not directly charge his countrymen with having forsaken Yahweh for Malcam, but blames them, because worshipping Him they also swear to Malcam, like those Assyrian colonists in Samaria who feared Yahweh and served their own gods, or like those of whom Ezekiel elsewhere speaks who, the same day on which they had slain their children to their idols, entered the sanctuary of Yahweh to profane it (Ezek 23:39). The captivity in Babylon put an end to Molech-worship, since it weaned the people from all their idolatries. We do not hear of it in the post-exilic Prophets, and, in the great historical psalm of Israel's rebelliousness and God's deliverances (Ps 106), it is only referred to in retrospect (Ps 106:37,38).

4. The Nature of the Worship:

When we come to consider the nature of this worship it is remarkable how few details are given regarding it in Scripture. The place where it was practiced from the days of Ahaz and Manasseh was the Valley of Hinnom where Topheth stood, a huge altar-pyre for the burning of the sacrificial victims. There is no evidence connecting the worship with the temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel's vision of sun-worshippers in the temple is purely ideal (Ezek 8). A priesthood is spoken of as attached to the services (Jer 49:3; compare Zeph 1:4,5). The victims offered to the divinity were not burnt alive, but were killed as sacrifices, and then presented as burnt offerings. "To pass through the fire" has been taken to mean a lustration or purification of the child by fire, not involving death. But the prophets clearly speak of slaughter and sacrifice, and of high places built to burn the children in the fire as burnt offerings (Jer 19:5; Ezek 16:20,21).

The popular conception, molded for English readers largely by Milton's "Moloch, horrid king" as described in Paradise Lost, Book I, is derived from the accounts given in late Latin and Greek writers, especially the account which Diodorus Siculus gives in his History of the Carthaginian Kronos or Moloch. The image of Moloch was a human figure with a bull's head and outstretched arms, ready to receive the children destined for sacrifice. The image of metal was heated red hot by a fire kindled within, and the children laid on its arms rolled off into the fiery pit below. In order to drown the cries of the victims, flutes were played, and drums were beaten; and mothers stood by without tears or sobs, to give the impression of the voluntary character of the offering (see Rawlinson's Phoenicia, 113 f, for fuller details).

On the question of the origin of this worship there is great variety of views. Of a non-Sem origin there is no evidence; and there is no trace of human sacrifices in the old Babylonian religion. That it prevailed widely among Semitic peoples is clear.

5. Origin and Extent of the Worship:

While Milcom or Malcam is peculiarly the national god of the Ammonites, as is Chemosh of the Moabites, the name Molech or Melech was recognized among the Phoenicians, the Philistines, the Arameans, and other Semitic peoples, as a name for the divinity they worshipped from a very early time. That it was common among the Canaanites when the Israelites entered the land is evident from the fact that it was among the abominations from which they were to keep themselves free. That it was identical at first with the worship of Yahweh, or that the prophets and the best men of the nation ever regarded it as the national worship of Israel, is a modern theory which does not appear to the present writer to have been substantiated. It has been inferred from Abraham's readiness to offer up Isaac at the command of God, from the story of Jephthah and his daughter, and even from the sacrifice of Hiel the Bethelite (1 Ki 16:34), that human sacrifice to Yahweh was an original custom in Israel, and that therefore the God of Israel was no other than Moloch, or at all events a deity of similar character. But these incidents are surely too slender a foundation to support such a theory. "The fundamental idea of the heathen rite was the same as that which lay at the foundation of Hebrew ordinance: the best to God; but by presenting to us this story of the offering of Isaac, and by presenting it in this precise form, the writer simply teaches the truth, taught by all the prophets, that to obey is better than sacrifice--in other words that the God worshipped in Abraham's time was a God who did not delight in destroying life, but in saving and sanctifying it" (Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, 254). While there is no ground for identifying Yahweh with Moloch, there are good grounds for seeing a community of origin between Moloch and Baal. The name, the worship, and the general characteristics are so similar that it is natural to assign them a common place of origin in Phoenicia. The fact that Moloch-worship reached the climax of its abominable cruelty in the Phoenician colonies of which Carthage was the center shows that it had found among that people a soil suited to its peculiar genius.

LITERATURE.

Wolf Baudissin, "Moloch" in PRE3; G. F. Moore, "Moloch" in EB; Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, 241-65; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 352 ff; Buchanan Gray, Hebrew Proper Names, 138 ff.

T. Nicol.


MOLI

mo'-li.

See MOOLI .


MOLID

mo'-lid (molidh): A Judahite (1 Ch 2:29).


MOLLIFY

mol'-i-fi (from rakhakh, "to be soft"): "To make soft," used in modern English only figuratively, as "His anger was mollified." English Versions of the Bible, however, uses the word literally in its two occurrences: Isa 1:6, "wounds, and bruises .... neither bound up, neither mollified with oil"; The Wisdom of Solomon 16:12, "mollifying plaister." Neither occurrence of the word is changed by the Revised Version (British and American).


MOLOCH

mo'-lok: A deity of the Ammonites, like the planet Saturn, a representative of the sun-god in the particular aspect of a god of time.

See ASTROLOGY , 8;MOLECH .


MOLTEN SEA

See LAVER .


MOLTEN, IMAGE

mol'-t'-n.

See IMAGES .


MOMDIS

mom'-dis (Codex Alexandrinus Momdeis; Codex Vaticanus Momdeios): One of those who had taken "strange wives" (1 Esdras 9:34) = "Maadai" in Ezr 10:34.


MOMENT

mo'-ment (regha`, "a wink"; atomos, "an atom," stigme, "a point," parautika, immediately," "forthwith"): "Moment" is not used in Scripture for a division of time, but for an instant of time, as the wink or twinkling of the eye (Ex 33:5; Nu 16:21,45; Lam 4:6; 1 Cor 15:52), or for a short period of time (Job 20:5; Ps 30:5; Isa 26:20; 2 Cor 4:17). The division of the hour into sixty minutes was certainly known in Babylonia, and the Jews were made acquainted with it, at least during the captivity, but they do not seem to have adopted it very extensively.

H. Porter


MONEY

mun'-i: Various terms are used for money in the Bible, but the most common are the Hebrew keceph, and Greek argurion, both meaning silver. We find also qesiTah, rendered by Septuagint "lambs," probably referring to money in a particular form; chalkos, is used for money in Mt 10:9; Mk 6:8; 12:41. It was the name of a small coin of Agrippa II (Madden, Coins of the Jews); chrema, "price," is rendered money in Acts 4:37; 8:18,20; 24:26; kerma, "piece," i.e. piece of money (Jn 2:15); didrachmon, "tribute money" (Mt 17:24 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "half-shekel"); kensos, "census," "tribute money" (Mt 22:19).

1. Material and Form:

Gold and silver were the common medium of exchange in Syria and Palestine in the earliest times of which we have any historical record. The period of mere barter had passed before Abraham. The close connection of the country with the two great civilized centers of antiquity, Egypt and Babylonia, had led to the introduction of a currency for the purposes of trade. We have abundant evidence of the use of these metals in the Biblical records, and we know from the monuments that they were used as money before the time of Abraham. The patriarch came back from his visit to Egypt "rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Gen 13:2). There was no system of coinage, but they had these metals cast in a convenient form for use in exchange, such as bars or rings, the latter being a common form and often represented or mentioned on the monuments of Egypt. In Babylonia the more common form seems to have been the former, such as the bar, or wedge, that Achan found in the sack of Jericho (Josh 7:21). This might indicate that the pieces were too large for ordinary use, but we have indications of the use of small portions also (2 Ki 12:9; Job 42:11). But the pieces were not so accurately divided as to pass for money without weighing, as we see in the case of the transaction between Abraham and the children of Heth for the purchase of the field of Machpelah (Gen 23). This transaction indicates also the common use of silver as currency, for it was "current money with the merchant," and earlier than this we have mention of the use of silver by Abraham as money: "He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money" (Gen 17:13).

Jewels of silver and gold were probably made to conform to the shekel weight, so that they might be used for money in case of necessity. Thus Abraham's servant gave to Rebecca a gold ring of half a shekel weight and bracelets of ten shekels weight (Gen 24:22). The bundles of money carried by the sons of Jacob to Egpyt for the purchase of grain (Gen 42:35) were probably silver rings tied together in bundles. The Hebrew for "talent," kikkar, signifies something round or circular, suggesting a ring of this weight to be used as money. The ordinary term for money was keceph, "silver," and this word preceded by a numeral always refers to money, either with or without "shekel," which we are probably to supply where it is not expressed after the numeral, at least wherever value is involved, as the shekel (sheqel) was the standard of value as well as of weight (see WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ). Thus the value of the field of Ephron was in shekels, as was also the estimation of offerings for sacred purposes (Lev 5:15; 27, passim). Solomon purchased chariots at 600 (shekels) each and horses at 150 (1 Ki 10:29). Large sums were expressed in talents, which were a multiple of the shekel. Thus Menahem gave Pul 1,000 talents of silver (2 Ki 15:19), which was made up by the exaction of 50 shekels from each rich man. Hezekiah paid the war indemnity to Sennacherib with 300 talents of silver and 30 of gold (2 Ki 18:14). The Assyrian account gives 800 talents of silver, and the discrepancy may not be an error in the Hebrew text, as some would explain it, but probably a different kind of talent (see Madden, Coins of the Jews, 4). Solomon's revenue is stated in talents (1 Ki 10:14), and the amount (666 of gold) indicates that money was abundant, for this was in addition to what he obtained from the vassal states and by trade. His partnership with the Phoenicians in commerce brought him large amounts of the precious metals, so that silver was said to have been as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones (1 Ki 10:27).

Besides the forms of rings and bars, in which the precious metals were cast for commercial use, some other forms were perhaps current. Thus the term qesiTah has been referred to as used for money, and the Septuagint translation has "lambs." It is used in Gen 33:19; Josh 24:32; Job 42:11, and the Septuagint rendering is supposed to indicate a piece in the form of a lamb or stamped with a lamb, used at first as a weight, later the same weight of the precious metals being used for money. We are familiar with lion weights and weights in the form of bulls and geese from the monuments, and it would not be strange to find them in the form of sheep. QesiTah is cognate with the Arabic qasaT, which means "to divide exactly" or "justly," and the noun qist means "a portion" or "a measure."

Another word joined with silver in monetary use is 'aghorah, the term being translated "a piece of silver" in 1 Sam 2:36. 'Aghorah is cognate with the Arabic ujrat, "a wage," and it would seem that the piece of silver in this passage might refer to the same usage.

Another word used in a similar way is rats, from ratsats, "to break in pieces," hence, rats is "a piece" or "fragment of silver" used as money. These terms were in use before the introduction of coined money and continued after coins became common.

2. Coined Money:

After the exile we begin to find references to coined money. It was invented in Lydia or perhaps in Aegina. Herodotus assigns the invention to the Lydians (i.94). The earliest Lydian coins were struck by Gyges in the 7th century BC. These coins were of electrum and elliptical in form, smooth on the reverse but deeply stamped with incuse impressions on the obverse. They were called staters, but were of two standards; one for commercial use with the Babylonians, weighing about 164,4 grains, and the other of 224 grains (see Madden, op. cit.). Later, gold was coined, and, by the time of Croesus, gold and silver. The Persians adopted the Lydian type, and coined both gold and silver darics, the name being derived from Darius Hystaspis (521-485 BC) who is reputed to have introduced the system into his empire. But the staters of Lydia were current there under Cyrus (Madden, op. cit.), and it was perhaps with these that the Jews first became acquainted in Babylon. Ezra states (2:69) that "they (the Jews) gave after their ability into the treasury of the work threescore and one thousand darics (the Revised Version (British and American)) of gold, and five thousand pounds of silver." The term here rendered "daric" is darkemonim, and this word is used in three passages in Neh (7:70-72), and 'adharkonim occurs in 1 Ch 29:7 and Ezr 8:27. Both are of the same origin as the Greek drachma, probably, though some derive both from Darius (a Phoenician inscription from the Piraeus tells us that darkemon corresponds to drachma). At all events they refer to the gold coins which we know as darics. The weight of the daric was 130 grains, though double darics were struck.

Besides the gold daric there was a silver coin circulating in Persia that must have been known to the Jews. This was the siglos, supposed to be referred to in Neh 5:15, where it is translated "shekel." These were the so-called silver darics, 20 of which were equivalent to the gold daric. Besides these Persian coins the Jews must have used others derived from their intercourse with the Phoenician cities, which were allowed to strike coins under the suzerainty of the Persians. These coins were of both silver and bronze, the suzerain not permitting them to coin gold. We have abundant examples of these coins and trade must have made them familiar to the Jews.

The issues of Aradus, Sidon and Tyre were especially noteworthy, and were of various types and sizes suited to the commercial transactions of the Phoenicians. The Tyrian traders were established in Jerusalem as early as the time of Nehemiah (13:16), and their coins date back to about that period. Among the finest specimens we have of early coinage are the tetradrachms of Tyre and the double shekels or staters of Sidon. The latter represent the Persian king, on the obverse, as he rides in his chariot, driven by his charioteer and followed by an attendant. On the reverse is a Phoenician galley. The weight of these coins is from 380 to 430 grains, and they are assigned to the 4th and 5th centuries BC. From Tyre we have a tetradrachm which corresponds to the shekel of the Phoenician standard of about 220 grains, which represents, on the obverse, the god Melkarth, the Tyrian Hercules, tiding on a seahorse, and, beneath, a dolphin. The reverse bears an owl with the Egyptian crook and a flail, symbols of Osiris. The early coins of Aradus bear, on the obverse, the head of Baal or Dagon, and on the reverse a galley. The inscription has "M.A." in Phoenician letters, followed by a date. The inscription signifies "Melek Aradus," i.e. "king of Aradus."

When Alexander overthrew the Persian empire in 331 BC, a new coinage, on the Attic standard, was introduced, and the silver drachms and tetradrachms struck by him circulated in large numbers, as is attested by the large number of examples still in existence. After his death, these coins, the tetradrachms especially, continued to be struck in the provinces, with his name and type, in his honor. We have examples of these struck at Aradus, Tyre, Sidon, Damascus and Acre, bearing the mint marks of these towns. They bear on the obverse the head of Alexander as Hercules, and, on the reverse, Zeus seated on his throne holding an eagle in the extended right hand and a scepter in the left. The legend is BASILEOS ALEXANDROU, or ALEXANDROU, only, with various symbols of the towns or districts where they were struck, together with mint marks.

The successors of Alexander established kingdoms with a coinage of their own, such as the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria, and these coins, as well as those of Alexander, circulated among the Jews. The Ptolemies of Egypt controlled Palestine for about a century after Alexander, and struck coins, not only in Egypt, but in some of the Phoenician towns, especially at Acre, which was, from that time, known as Ptolemais. Their coins were based upon the Phoenician standard. But the Seleucid kings of Syria had the most influence in Phoenicia and Palestine, and their monetary issues are very various and widely distributed, bearing the names and types of the kings, and the symbols and mint marks of the different towns where they were struck, and are on the Alexandrine or Attic standard in contrast to those of the Ptolemies. They are both silver and bronze, gold being struck in the capital, Antioch, usually. The coins of Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, are especially interesting on account of his connection with Jewish affairs. It was he who made the futile attempt to hellenize the Jews, which led to the revolt that resulted, under his successors, in the independence of the country of Syrian control, and the institution of a native coinage in the time of the Maccabees.

The struggle caused by the persecution of Antiochus commenced in 165 BC and continued more than 20 years. Judas, the son of Mattathias, defeated Antiochus, who died in 164, but the war was continued by his successors until dynastic dissensions among them led to treaties with the Jews to gain their support. At last Simon, who espoused the cause of Demetrius II, obtained from him, as a reward, the right to rule Judea under the title of high priest, with practical independence, 142-143 BC. Later Antiochus VII, his successor, confirmed Simon in his position and added some privileges, and among them the right to coin money (138-139 BC). Both silver and bronze coins exist ascribed to Simon, but some numismatists have recently doubted this, and have assigned them to another Simon in the time of the first revolt of the Jews under the Romans. The coins in question are the shekels and half-shekels with the legends, in Hebrew, sheqel yisra'el and yerushalem qedhoshah ("Jerusalem the holy"), bearing dates ranging from the 1st to the 5th year, as well as bronze pieces of the 4th.

The reason for denying the ascription of these coins to Simon the Maccabee is the difficulty in finding room for the years indicated in his reign which closed in 135 BC. He received the commission to coin in 139-138, which would allow only 4 years for his coinage, whereas we have coins of the 5th year. Moreover, no shekels and half-shekels of any of the Maccabees later than Simon have come to light, which is, at least, singular since we should have supposed that all would have coined them as long as they remained independent, especially since they coined in bronze, examples of the latter being quite abundant. The fact also that they bore the title of king, while Simon was high priest only, would seem to have furnished an additional reason for claiming the prerogative of coinage in silver as well as bronze. But this argument is negative only, and such coins may have existed but have not come to light, and there are reasons which seem to the present writer sufficient to assign them to Simon the Maccabee. In the first place, the chronological difficulty is removed if we consider that Simon was practically independent for three or four years before he obtained the explicit commission to coin money. We learn from Josephus (Ant., XIII, vi, 7) and from 1 Macc (13:41,42) that in the 170th year of the Seleucid era, that is, 143-142 BC, the Jews began to use the era of Simon in their contracts and public records. Now it would not have been strange if Simon, seeing the anarchy that prevailed in the kingdom of Syria, should have assumed some prerogatives of an independent ruler before they were distinctly granted to him, and among them that of coining money. If he had commenced in the latter part of 139 BC, he would have been able to strike coins of the 5th year before he died, and this would satisfy the conditions (see Madden's Jewish Coinage). There is a difficulty quite as great in attributing these coins to Simon of the first revolt under the Romans. That broke out in 66 AD, and was suppressed by the taking of Jerusalem in 70. This would allow a date of the 5th year, but it is hardly supposable that in the terrible distress and anarchy that prevailed in the city during that last year any silver coins would have been struck. There is another fact bearing upon this question which is worthy of notice. The coins of the first revolt bear personal appellations, such as "Eleazar the priest," and "Simon," while those assigned to Simon the Maccabee bear no personal designation whatever. This is significant, for it is not likely that Eleazar and Simon would have commenced coining silver shekels and half-shekels with their names inscribed upon them in the 1st year of their reign and then have omitted them on later issues. Another point which has some force is this: We find mention, in the New Testament, of money-changers in connection with the temple, whose business it was to change the current coin, which was Roman or Greek, and bore heathen types and legends, for Jewish coins, which the strict Pharisaic rules then in force required from worshippers paying money into the temple treasury. It is inferred that they could furnish the shekels and half-shekels required for the yearly dues from every adult male (compare Mt 17:24-27). Now the only shekels and half-shekels bearing Jewish emblems and legends, at that time, must have been those issued by the Maccabean princes, that is, such as we have under discussion. In view of these facts the Maccabean origin of these pieces seems probable.

The shekels under discussion have on one side a cup, or chalice (supposed to represent the pot of manna), with the legend in Hebrew around the margin, sheqel yisra'el, with a letter above the cup indicating the year of the reign. The reverse bears the sprig of a plant (conjectured to be Aaron's rod) having three buds or fruits, and on the margin the legend, yerushalem ha-qedhoshah, "Jerusalem the holy." The half-shekel has the same type, but the reverse bears the inscription, chatsi sheqel (half-shekel). The letters indicating the year have the letter called "shin" (Shenath, "year") prefixed, except for the first. This also omits the Hebrew letter "waw" (w) from qedhoshah and the second letter, "yodh" (y) from yerushalem. The term "holy" for Jerusalem is found in Isa 48:2 and other passages of the Old Testament, and is still preserved in the Arabic qudus by which the city is known today in Syria.

Copper, or bronze, half-and quarter-shekels are also attributed to Simon, bearing date of the 4th year. The obverse of the half-shekel has two bundles of thick-leaved branches with a citron between, and on the reverse a palm tree with two baskets filled with fruit. The legend on the obverse is shenath 'arba` chatsi, "the fourth year a half," and on the reverse, li-ghe'ullath tsiyon, "the redemption of Zion." The quarter-shekel has a similar type, except that the obverse lacks the baskets and the reverse has the citron only. The legend has rebhia`, "quarter," instead of "half." Another type is a cup with a margin of jewels on the obverse and a single bunch of branches with two citrons on the reverse.

The palm is a very common type on the coins of Judea and a very appropriate one, since it is grown there. Jericho was called the city of palms. The branches of trees in bundles illustrate the custom of carrying branches at the Feast of Tabernacles and the erection of booths made of branches for use during this feast (see Lev 23:40). The baskets of fruit may refer to the offerings of first-fruits (Dt 26:2). One of the above series of coins published by Madden bears the countermark of an elephant, which was a symbol adopted by the Seleucid kings, and this is an evidence of its early date. But whatever doubts there may be as to the coins of Simon, there can be none as to those of his successor, John Hyrcanus, who reigned 135-106 BC, since they bear his name. They are all of bronze and bear the following inscription with a great number of variations, Yehochanan hacohen hagadel wachabar heyhudim, "Johanan the high priest and senate of the Jews." The reverse has a two-branched cornucopia with a poppy head rising from the center. There is some doubt as to the meaning of the word hebher in the above. It is commonly rendered "senate," taking it in the sense it seems to bear in Hos 6:9, "a company" or "band," here the company of elders representing the people. Judas Aristobulus (106-105 BC) issued similar coins with Hebrew legends, but with the accession of Alexander Janneus (105-78 BC) we find bilingual inscriptions on the coins, Hebrew and Greek. The obverse bears the words yehonathan ha-melekh, "Jehonathan the king," and the reverse, BASILEOS ALEXANDROU, "King Alexander." Most of his coins, however, bear Hebrew inscriptions only. All are of copper or bronze, like those of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, and are of the denomination known to us in the New Testament as "mites" weighing from 25 to 35 grains.

When the Romans took possession of Palestine in 63 BC, the independent rule of the Hasmoneans came to an end, but Pompey confirmed John Hyrcanus as governor of Judea under the title of high priest. Dissensions between him and other members of his family called for interference several times on the part of the Romans. Hyrcanus was again confirmed by Julius Caesar in 47 and continued in authority until 40. It is uncertain what coins he issued, but whatever they were, they bore the type found on those of Alexander Janneus. In 40 BC, the Parthians temporarily overthrew the Roman authority in Syria and Palestine, and set Antigonus on the throne of the latter, and he reigned until 37. The coins he issued bore bilingual inscriptions like the bilinguals of Alexander. He calls himself Antigonus in Greek, and Mattathias in Hebrew, the type being a wreath on the obverse and a double cornucopia on the reverse, though some have it single. They are much heavier coins than the preceding issues. The legends are: obverse, BASILEOS ANTIGONOU, "of King Antigonus"; reverse (mattithyah ha-kohen gadhol ha-yeh(udhim), "Mattathias the high priest of the Jews."

The Hasmonean dynasty ended with Antigonus and that of the Herods followed. Herod the Great was the first to attain the title of king, and his coins are numerous and bear only Greek legends and are all of bronze. The earliest have the type of a helmet with cheek pieces on the obverse and the legend: BASILEOS HRODOU, and in the field to the left gamma (year 3), and on the right, a monogram. The reverse has a Macedonian shield with rays. The coin here illustrated is another type: a rude tripod on the obverse, and a cross within a wreath on the reverse, the legend being the same as given above.

Herod Archelaus, who reigned from 4 BC to 6 AD, issued coins with the title of ethnarch, the only coins of Palestine to bear this title. They are all of small size and some of them have the type of a galley, indicating his sovereignty over some of the coast cities, such as Caesarea and Joppa.

The coins of Herod Antipas (4 BC-40 AD) bear the title of tetrarch, many of them being struck at Tiberias, which he founded on the Sea of Galilee and named after the emperor Tiberius. The following is an example: obverse HER. TETR. (HERODOU TETRACHOU), with the type of a palm branch; reverse, TIBERIAS, within a wreath. Others have a palm tree entire with the date lambda-gamma (LG) and lambda-delta (LD): 33 and 34 of his reign, 29-30 AD. There are coins of Herod Philip, 4 BC-34 AD, though somewhat rare, but those of Agrippa, 37-44 AD, are numerous, considering the shortness of his reign. The most common type is a small coin ("mite") with an umbrella having a tassel-like border, on the obverse, and three ears of wheat on one stalk on the reverse. The legend reads: Basileos Agrippa, and the date is LS (year 6). Larger coins of Agrippa bear the head of the emperor (Caligula or Claudius) with the title of Sebastos (Augustus) in Greek.

Agrippa II was the last of the Herodian line to strike coins (48-100 AD). They were issued under Nero, whose head they sometimes bear with his name as well as that of Agrippa. They are all of the denomination of the mite (lepton).

In 6 AD, Judea was made a Rom province and was governed by procurators, and their coins are numerous, being issued during the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius and Nero. They are all small and bear on the obverse the legends: KAISAROS (Caesar), or IOULIA (Julia), or the emperor's name joined with Caesar. The coins of the Jews struck during the first and second revolts, 66-70 AD, and 132-135 AD, have already been alluded to with the difficulty of distinguishing them, and some have been described. They all have the types common to the purely Jewish issues; the date palm, the vine, bunches of fruit, the laurel or olive wreath, the cup or chalice, the lyre and a temple with columns. Types of animals or men they regarded as forbidden by their law. Most of them are bronze, but some are silver shekels and half-shekels, dated in the lat, 2nd and 3rd years, if we assign those of higher date to Simon the Maccabee. Those of the 1st year bear the name of Eleazar the priest, on the obverse, and on the reverse the date "first year of the redemption of Israel," shenath 'achath li-ghe'ullath yisra'el. Others bear the name of Simon and some that of "Simon Nesi' Israel" ("Simon Prince of Israel"). The coins of the 2nd and 3rd years are rare. They have the type of the cup and vine leaf, or temple and lulabh. Those supposed to belong to the second revolt bear the name of Simon without Nesi' Israel, and are therefore assigned to Simon Bar-Cochba. The example here given has the type of the temple on the obverse with what is thought to be a representation of the "beautiful gate," between the columns, and a star above. The name Simon is on the margin, the first two letters on the right of the temple and the others on the left. The legend of the reverse is: lecheruth yerushalem ("the deliverance of Jerusalem").

Some of the coins struck by the Romans to commemorate their victory over the Jews were struck in Palestine and some at Rome, and all bear the head of the Roman emperor on the obverse, but the reverse often exhibits Judea as a weeping captive woman, seated at the foot of a palm tree or of a Roman standard bearing a trophy. The legend is sometimes Judea capta and sometimes Judea devicta. The example given has the inscription in Greek: IOUDIAS EALOKUIAS, Judea capta.

There are coins of Agrippa II (the "king Agrippa" of Acts 25: 26, struck in the reign of Vespasian, with his name and title on the obverse and with a deity on the reverse, holding ears of wheat in the right hand and a cornucopia in the left. The inscription reads: ETOU KSBA AGRI PPA (year 26, King Agrippa) in two lines.

After the revolt of Bar-Cochba and the final subjugation of the Jews by Hadrian, Jerusalem was made a Roman colony and the name was changed to Aelia Capitolina. A series of coins was struck, having this title, which continued until the reign of Valerianus, 253-260 AD. These coins were all of copper or bronze, but silver pieces were in circulation, struck at Rome or at some of the more favored towns in Syria, such as Antioch. These were denarii and tetradrachms, the former being about one-fourth the weight of the latter which were known as staters (Mt 17:27). The piece referred to was the amount of tribute for two persons, and as the amount paid by one was the half-shekel (Mt 17:24), this piece must have been the equivalent of the shekel or tetradrachm.

H. Porter


MONEY, CURRENT

kur'-ent (`obher, "passing," Gen 28:16; 2 Ki 12:4 (Hebrew 5)): The text and translation in 2 Ki 12:4 are uncertain and difficult. See the Revised Version margin. The reference is probably not to a money standard, but to a poll tax which was levied in addition to the free-will offering. Gen 23:16 implies the existence of a standard shekel and also probably the use of the precious metals in stamped bars or ingots of an approximately fixed weight or value, a primitive coinage. Code of Hammurabi presupposes these pieces, and records in cuneiform writing discovered in Cappadocia indicate that shekel pieces with a seal stamp were in use in Asia Minor in the time of Hammurabi (Sayce, Contemporary Review, August, 1907, XCII, 259 ff). The existence of these pieces did not do away with the custom of weighing money, a practice which obtained in Israel down to the time of the exile (Jer 32:10).

Walter R. Betteridge


MONEY, LOVE OF

(philarguria, 1 Tim 6:10, literally, "love of silver"; compare corresponding "lovers of money" (Lk 16:14; 2 Tim 8:2), equivalent to "avarice"): The vice that seeks to retain and hoard all that is acquired (Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, xxiv); described as "a root of all kinds of evil."

See also COVETOUSNESS .


MONEY, SIN

See SIN MONEY ;SIN OFFERING .


MONEY-CHANGERS

chan'-jers (kollubistes, from kollubos, "a small coin," so "a money-changer," or "banker" (Mt 21:12; Mk 11:15; "changers" in Jn 2:15; compare 2:14, where kermatistes, "a dealer in small bits," or "change," is also rendered "changers"); compare trapezites, "one who sits at a table," "a money-changer," "a banker" or "broker"; one who both exchanges money for a small fee and pays interest on deposits (Mt 25:27, the King James Version "exchangers," the American Standard Revised Version "bankers")): The profession of money-changer in Palestine was made necessary by the law requiring every male Israelite who had reached the age of 20 years to pay into the treasury of the sanctuary a half-shekel at every numbering of the people, an offering to Yahweh, not even the poor being exempt. It seems to have become an annual tax, and was to be paid in the regular Jewish half-shekel (Ex 30:11-15). Since the Jews, coming up to the feasts, would need to exchange the various coins in common circulation for this Jewish piece, there were money-changers who exacted a premium for the exchange. This fee was a kollubos (about 31 cents in U.S. money, i.e. in 1915), hence, the name kollubistes. The Jews of Christ's day came from many parts of the world, and the business of exchanging foreign coins for various purposes became a lucrative one, the exchangers exacting whatever fee they might. Because of their greed and impiety, Jesus drove them from the courts of the temple.

Edward Bagby Pollard


MONSTER

mon'-ster.

See DRAGON ;SEA-MONSTER .


MONTH

munth (chodhesh, yerach; men): Chodhesh is strictly the "new moon," the appearance of which marked the beginning of the month, commonly indicated by ro'sh ha-chodhesh. Yerach is derived from yareach, "moon," which comes from the verb that means "to wander," "to make a circuit." Thus the month was lunar, the period of the moon's circuit. The Greek men also meant "moon," from the Sanskrit ma, "to measure," the Latin mensis and our "moon" being derived from the same root.

See CALENDAR ;TIME ;ASTRONOMY .

Chodhesh, or rather ro'sh ha-chodhesh, was observed as a festival (1 Sam 20:5,18,24; Isa 1:14).

H. Porter


MONTHLY; PROGNOSTICATORS

munth'-li, prog-nos'-ti-ka-terz.

See ASTROLOGY , sec. I, 6.


MONUMENT

mon'-u-ment (Isa 65:4 the King James Version).

See VAULT .


MOOLI

mo'-o-li (Codex Alexandrinus Mooli; Codex Vaticanus Moolei; the King James Version Moli): Son of Merari and grandson of Levi (1 Esdras 8:47) = "Mahli" in Ezr 8:18 (see Ex 6:16,19).


MOON

moon (yareach; meaning obscure--probably "wanderer"; by some given as "paleness"; selene): The moon was very early worshipped by the nations of the Far East as a divinity or the representative of one or more deities. These deities were both masculine and feminine. In Assyria and Babylonia the most common name for the moon-god was Sin or Sen. In Babylonia he was also called Aku and Nannara. In Egypt the moon was representative of several deities, all masculine. The chief of these was Thoth the god of knowledge, so called because the moon was the measurer of time. Babylonia has, also, Aa, the goddess of the moon, as the consort of the sun, while her equivalent was known in Phoenicia as Ashtaroth-karnaim. This personification and worship of the moon among the nations who were neighbors to Palestine was but part of an elaborate Nature-worship found among these people. Nor was this worship always separated from Palestine by geographical lines. It crept into the thought and customs of the Hebrews and in a sense affected their religious conceptions and ceremonies. They fell into the habit of making direct homage to sun, moon and stars, as is evidenced by Job 31:26,27; Jer 44:17, and even Isa 8:18 (see CRESCENTS ). Moses seems to have forewarned his people against the danger of this form of worship (Dt 4:19).

The actual worship of the moon and the idolatry consequent thereon seems to have touched the Hebrews, though this is disputed by some. It would seem difficult to explain 2 Ki 21:3 upon any other supposition, and in 2 Ki 23:4,5 we have a clear statement that Josiah put down the worship of the moon among the people and silenced the priests of this form of worship.

Certain forms of the adoration of the moon, or superstitious fear of baneful influences as coming from the moon, still abound in some sections of the world. In fact in nearly all sections modified forms of old superstitions still hold sway and yield but slowly to scientific knowledge.

The eclipses of the moon were naturally given a religious significance inasmuch as the Hebrew knowledge of them did not rise much above awe and wonder (Isa 18:10; Joel 2:31; Mt 24:29; Mk 13:24). Other passages causing interference with the constancy of the moon to foreshadow great events can be found in Jer 13:16; Ezek 32:7,8; Rev 8:12. An interesting passage and most difficult of interpretation is Rev 12:1. It is frequently interpreted as a revelation in symbolism of the glory of the church clothed with the light and radiating the truth of God.

See also ASTRONOMY ;ASTROLOGY .

C. E. Schenk


MOON, NEW

See ASTROLOGY , sec. I, 6; ASTRONOMY, sec. I, 3, (1); FASTS AND FEASTS.


MOOSSIAS

mo-os'-i-as (Codex Vaticanus Moosseias; Codex Alexandrinus Moos Sias; the King James Version, Moosias, mo-o-si'as): One of those who had taken a "strange wife" (1 Esdras 9:31) = "Maaseiah" in Ezr 10:30.


MOPH

mof.

See MEMPHIS .


MORALITY

mo-ral'-i-ti.

See ETHICS .


MORASHTITE

mo-rash'-tit (hamorashti; the King James Version, Morasthite, mo-ras'-thit): Gentilic designation of the prophet Micah (Jer 26:18; Mic 1:1).

See also MORESHETH-GATH .


MORDECAI

mor'-de-ki, mor-de-ka'-i (mordekhay; Mardochaios): An Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, whose fate it has been to occupy a distinguished place in the annals of his people. His great-grandfather, Kish, had been carried to Babylon along with Jeconiah, king of Judah (Est 2:5-6). For nearly 60 years before the scenes narrated in Esther, in which Mordecai was greatly concerned, took place, the way to Palestine had been open to the Israelites; but neither his father, Jair, nor afterward himself chose to return to the ancient heritage. This seems to have been the case also with the rest of his house, as it was with the vast majority of the Israelite people; for his uncle died in Persia leaving his motherless daughter, Hadassah, to the care of Mordecai. Employed in the royal palace at Susa, he attracted, through the timely discovery of a plot to assassinate the king, the favorable notice of Xerxes, and in a short time became the grand vizier of the Persian empire. He has been believed by many to have been the author of the Book of Esther; and in the earliest known notice of the Feast of Purim, outside of the book just mentioned, that festival is closely associated with his name. It is called "the day of Mordecai" (2 Macc 15:36). The apocryphal additions to Esther expatiate upon his greatness, and are eloquent of the deep impression which his personality and power had made upon the Jewish people. Lord Arthur Hervey has suggested the identification of Mordecai with Matacas, or Natacas, the powerful favorite and minister of Xerxes who is spoken of by Ctesias, the Greek historian. Few have done more to earn a nation's lasting gratitude than Mordecai, to whom, under God, the Jewish people owe their preservation.

John Urquhart


MOREH, HILL OF

mo'-re (gibh`ath ha-moreh, "hill of the teacher"; Codex Vaticanus Gabaathamora; Codex Alexandrinus, tou bomou tou Abor): The Hebrew moreh is derived from the verb yarah, "to teach," "to direct," and indicates one who directs, or gives oracular answers. We might therefore read "hill of the teacher," the height being associated with such a person who had his seat here. The hill is named only in describing the position of the Midianites before Gideon's attack (Jdg 7:1). If the identification of the Well of Harod with `Ain Jalud is correct, Gideon must have occupied the slopes to the East of Jezreel. The Midianite camp was in the valley of Jezreel (Jdg 6:33). The Hebrew text in Jdg 7:1, which has probably suffered some corruption, seems to mean that the Midianites lay North of the position held by Gideon, their lines running from the hill of Moreh in the plain. The hill can hardly have been other than Jebel ed-Duchy, often called Little Hermon, which rises boldly from the northern edge of the vale of Jezreel, with Shunem (Solam) lying at its western foot. Moore ("Judges," ICC, 200) would lay the scene in the neighborhood of Shechem, but there is no good reason to doubt the accuracy of the tradition which places it at the eastern end of the plain of Esdraelon.

W. Ewing


MOREH, OAK OF

('elon moreh, "terebinth of the teacher"; ten drun ten hupselen; the King James Version Plain of Moreh): It seems probable that the place here intended may be the same as that mentioned in Dt 11:30 ('elone moreh, "terebinths of Moreh," the King James Version "plains," the Revised Version (British and American) "oaks," the Revised Version margin "terebinths"). Both are defined as near to Shechem. The position cannot be identified today. The tree or trees were evidently a place of resort for those who wished to consult a moreh. See MOREH ,HILL OF . To this day in Palestine trees are often regarded with a certain religious awe as the habitation of spirits. Isolated terebinths receive much veneration. The present writer has often seen such trees with multitudinous rags of all colors attached to them by the peasantry as evidence of their homage.

See MEONENIM .

W. Ewing


MORESHETH-GATH

mo'-resh-eth-gath, mo-resh'-eth-gath (moresheth gath, "inheritance or possession of Gath"; Septuagint kleronomias Geth): A place mentioned only in Mic 1:14. It must have been in the vicinity of Gath as the meaning of the name would indicate, and was the home of the prophet Micah (Mic 1:1; Jer 26:18). It was probably in the vicinity of Mareshah (Mic 1:15). Jerome, in his preface to his work on Micah, places it a little to the East of Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin), and it would be natural to find it there if the latter place was Gath as some think. Robinson (BR, II, 68) found ruins of a village between one and two miles East of Beit Jibrin. It must have been among the foot-hills of Judah between the hill country and the Philistine plain on the route from Jerusalem to Lachish, Gaza and Egypt. Mareshah was certainly in that region, and the prophecy of Micah mentions towns and villages in the Shephelah and the Philistine country as though they were familiar to him (see HGHL and G. A. Smith, "Micah," in his Minor Prophets).

H. Porter


MORIAH, LAND OF

mo-ri'-a ('erec ha-moriyah; eis ten genitive ten hupselen): Abraham was directed by God to take his son Isaac, to go into the land of Moriah, and there to offer him for a burnt offering (Gen 22:2) upon a mountain which God would show him. This land is mentioned only here, and there is little to guide us in trying to identify it. A late writer (2 Ch 3:1) applies the name of Moriah to the mount on which Solomon's Temple was built, possibly associating it with the sacrifice of Isaac. A similar association with this mountain may have been in the mind of the writer of Gen 22 (see 22:14), who, of course, wrote long after the events described (Driver). But in 22:2 no special mountain is indicated.

Abraham journeyed from the land of the Philistines, and on the 3rd day he saw the place afar off (Gen 22:4). This naturally suggests some prominent mountain farther North than Jerusalem. The description could hardly apply to Jerusalem in any case, as it could not be seen "afar off" by one approaching either from the South or the West. The Samaritans lay the scene of sacrifice on Mt. GERIZIM (which see).

Instead of "Moriah" in this passage Peshitta reads "Amorites." This suggests a possible emendation of the text, which, if it be accepted, furnishes a more definite ides of the land within which that memorable scene was enacted. Both Jerusalem and Gerizim, however, lay within the boundaries of the land of the Amorites. No doubt the enmity existing between the Jews and the Samaritans led them each to glorify their own holy places to the detriment of those of their rivals. Little stress can therefore be laid upon their identifications. With our present knowledge we must be content to leave the question open.

W. Ewing


MORNING

mor'-ning: There are several Hebrew and Greek words which are rendered "morning," the most common in Hebrew being boqer, which occurs 180 times. It properly means "the breaking forth of the light," "the dawn," as in Gen 19:27; Jdg 19:8,25,27. Another word with the same meaning is shachar (Gen 19:15; Neh 4:21; Isa 58:8). mishchar ("womb of the morning," Ps 110:3) is a poetical term derived from. the same root. See HIND OF THE MORNING . noghah, naghha' (Dan 6:19 (Hebrew 20)), mean "brightness." hashkem, comes from hishkim, "to load an animal" (for a journey), and as the nomads are accustomed to do this early in the morning it came to mean early morning (1 Sam 17:16).

See BETIMES .

In the New Testament orthros, is properly "dawn," and is used for early morning (Jn 8:2; Acts 5:21), and

proia signifies the same (Mt 27:1). proi, "early," is an adverb and means early in the morning (Mk 1:35). Morning as an adjective is orthrinos (Rev 22:16), or proinos (1 Esdras 1:11; 5:50; Rev 2:28; 22:16).

H. Porter


MORNING WATCH

'ash-moreth ha-boker (Ex 14:24; 1 Sam 11:11); in Judith 12:5 for heothine phulake; compare Sirach 55:6; 1 Macc 5:30): The last portion of the night.

See WATCH .


MORNING, WINGS OF

See ASTRONOMY , sec. I, 4.


MORROW AFTER THE SABBATH

(mochorath, or mochoratham, "the morrow," or "tomorrow," "the day following"; mochorath ha-shabbath, "the day after the Sabbath," i.e. the first day of the week): The first day of the week was designated for the formal offering of the first-fruits in the form of wave-sheaves (Lev 23:11), and of the wave-loaves 50 days later (Lev 23:16,17). This recognition of an after-Sabbath during festive periods has its counterpart in the later ecclesiastical practice of celebrating not only Easter Sunday, but also Easter Monday, etc., and undoubtedly was a factor in establishing the custom which transferred the sanctity of the Sabbath to the first day of the week after the resurrection of our Lord.

Frank E. Hirsch


MORROW, TOMORROW

mor'-o, too-mor'-o: Two words are used in the Old Testament in this meaning: boqer, which properly means "dawn," or "morning," and machar, properly the same, but used for the next morning and hence, "tomorrow," like the German morgen. The derivative mo-chorath, is "the following day," "all the next day," especially after yom ("day"), but usually coupled with a noun following, as in Lev 23:11, mochorath ha-shabbath "day after the Sabbath." It is also used adverbially for "on the morrow," as in Gen 19:34.

In the Greek of the New Testament we find aurion (Mt 6:34, etc.), commonly used, but hexes, also occurs (Acts 25:17 the King James Version, where the Revised Version (British and American) renders more exactly "the next day"); epaurion, is "on the morrow" (Acts 10:9,23,24).

H. Porter


MORSEL

mor'-sel (brosis): Found only in Heb 12:16 the King James Version, "For one morsel of meat (the Revised Version (British and American) "mess of meat") sold his birthright," literally, "for one eating," i.e. one meal. The Great Bible (Cranmer's) has "for one mease of meat."


MORTAL; MORTALITY

mor'-tal, mor-tal'-i-ti (thnetos to thneton): The meaning is "subject to death" (Rom 6:12; 8:11; 1 Cor 15:53,54; in 2 Cor 5:4 the Revised Version (British and American) has "what is mortal"). In Job 4:17, the Hebrew word is 'enosh, "mortal man."

See IMMORTAL .


MORTAR

mor'-ter (medhokhah (Nu 11:8), makhtesh (Prov 27:22)): A hollowed stone or vessel in which grain or other substance was pounded or beaten with a pestle. The Israelites used a mortar in which to beat the manna in the wilderness (Nu 11:8), and Prov 27:22 declares, "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle .... yet will not his foolishness depart from him," i.e. it is inherent and ineradicable. Some have supposed an allusion to an oriental mode of punishment by pounding the criminal to death in a mortar, but this is unlikely. In illustration of Prov 27:22 such proverbs are quoted as "Though you beat that loose woman in a mortar, she will not leave her ways." See also BRAY . For "mortar" (the King James Version "morter").

See BITUMEN .

James Orr


MORTGAGE

mor'-gaj (arabh): To give or be security as a part of bartering, give pledges, become surety. In time of great need for food, "Some also there were that said, We are mortgaging (the King James Version "have mortgaged") our fields," etc. (Neh 5:3).

See SURETY .


MORTIFY

mor'-ti-fi (Rom 8:13 the King James Version and the English Revised Version, thanatoo, the English Revised Version margin "make to die," and Col 3:5, nekroo, the English Revised Version margin "make dead"): This sense of mortify is obsolete in modern English, and the American Standard Revised Version in both places substitutes "put to death," with great advantage. The context in both passages goes to the heart of Paul's doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ. This union has given the soul a new life, flowing (through the Spirit) from Christ in the heavenly world, so that the remnants of the old corrupt life-principle are now dangerous excrescences. Hence, they are to be destroyed, just as a surgeon removes the remnants of a diseased condition after the reestablishment of healthy circulation. The interpreter must guard against weakening Paul's language into some such phrase as "subdue all that is inconsistent with the highest ideals," for Paul views the union with Christ as an intensely real, quasi-physical relation.

Burton Scott Easton


MOSERAH

mo-se'-ra, mo'-se-ra (mocerah, "bond"): Perhaps Moser with the "he" of locale (direction), "to Moser" (Dt 10:6).

See MOSEROTH .


MOSEROTH

mo-se'-roth, mo'-se-roth, -roth (moceroth, "bonds"): A desert camp of the Israelites between Hashmonah and Bene-jaakan (Nu 33:30,31). It is probably the same as Moserah (Dt 10:6), though in that passage the name follows Bene-jaakan. There Aaron died and was buried.

See WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL .


MOSES

mo'-zez, mo'-ziz (mosheh; Egyptian mes, "drawn out," "born"; Septuagint Mouse(s)). The great Hebrew national hero, leader, author, law-giver and prophet.

I. LIFE

1. Son of Levi

2. Foundling Prince

3. Friend of the People

4. Refuge in Midian

5. Leader of Israel

II. WORK AND CHARACTER

1. The Author

2. The Lawgiver

3. The Prophet

LITERATURE

The traditional view of the Jewish church and of the Christian church, that Moses was a person and that the narrative with which his life-story is interwoven is real history, is in the main sustained by commentators and critics of all classes.

It is needless to mention the old writers among whom these questions were hardly under discussion. Among the advocates of the current radical criticism may be mentioned Stade and Renan, who minimize the historicity of the Bible narrative at this point. Renan thinks the narrative "may be very probable." Ewald, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, and Driver, while finding many flaws in the story, make much generally of the historicity of the narrative.

The critical analysis of the Pentateuch divides this life-story of Moses into three main parts, J, E, and the Priestly Code (P), with a fourth, D, made up mainly from the others. Also some small portions here and there are given to R, especially the account of Aaron's part in the plagues of Egypt, where his presence in a J-document is very troublesome for the analytical theory. It is unnecessary to encumber this biography with constant cross-references to the strange story of Moses pieced together out of the rearranged fragments into which the critical analysis of the Pentateuch breaks up the narrative. It is recognized that there are difficulties in the story of Moses. In what ancient life-story are there not difficulties? If we can conceive of the ancients being obliged to ponder over a modern life-story, we can easily believe that they would have still more difficulty with it. But it seems to very many that the critical analysis creates more difficulties in the narrative than it relieves. It is a little thing to explain by such analysis some apparent discrepancy between two laws or two events or two similar incidents which we do not clearly understand. It is a far greater thing so to confuse, by rearranging, a beautiful, well-articulated biography that it becomes disconnected--indeed, in parts, scarcely makes sense.

The biographical narrative of the Hebrew national hero, Moses, is a continuous thread of history in the Pentateuch. That story in all its simplicity and symmetry, but with acknowledgment of its difficulties as they arise, is here to be followed.

I. Life.

1. Son of Levi:

The recorded story of Moses' life falls naturally into five rather unequal parts: "And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi" (Ex 2:1). The son of Levi born of that union became the greatest man among mere men in the whole history of the world. How far he was removed in genealogy from Levi it is impossible to know. The genealogical lists (Gen 46:11; Ex 6:16-20; Nu 3:14-28; 26:57-59; 1 Ch 6:1-3) show only 4 generations from Levi to Moses, while the account given of the numbers of Israel at the exodus (Ex 12:37; 38:26; Nu 1:46; 11:21) imperatively demand at least 10 or 12 generations. The males alone of the sons of Kohath "from a month old and upward" numbered at Sinai 8,600 (Nu 3:27,28). It is evident that the extract from the genealogy here, as in many other places (1 Ch 23:15 f; 26:24; Ezr 7:1-5; 8:1,2; compare 1 Ch 6:3-14; Mt 1:1-17; Lk 3:23-38) is not complete, but follows the common method of giving important heads of families. The statement concerning Jochebed: "And she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister" (Nu 26:59) really creates no difficulty, as it is likewise said of Zilpah, after the mention of her grandsons, "And these she bare unto Jacob" (Gen 46:17,18; compare 46:24,25).

The names of the immediate father and mother of Moses are not certainly known. The mother "saw him that he was a goodly child" (Ex 2:2). So they defied the commandment of the king (Ex 1:22), and for 3 months hid him instead of throwing him into the river.

2. Foundling Prince:

The time soon came when it was impossible longer to hide the child (Josephus, Ant, II, ix, 3-6). The mother resolved upon a plan which was at once a pathetic imitation of obedience to the commandment of the king, an adroit appeal to womanly sympathy, and, if it succeeded, a subtle scheme to bring the cruelty of the king home to his own attention. Her faith succeeded. She took an ark of bulrushes (Ex 2:3,4; compare ARK OF BULRUSHES ), daubed it with bitumen mixed with the sticky slime of the river, placed in this floating vessel the child of her love and faith, and put it into the river at a place among the sedge in the shallow water where the royal ladies from the palace would be likely to come down to bathe. A sister, probably Miriam, stood afar off to watch (Ex 2:3,4). The daughter of Pharaoh came down with her great ladies to the river (Ex 2:5-10). The princess saw the ark among the sedge and sent a maid to fetch it. The expectation of the mother was not disappointed. The womanly sympathy of the princess was touched. She resolved to save this child by adopting him. Through the intervention of the watching sister, he was given to his own mother to be nursed (Ex 2:7-9). "And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son" (Ex 2:10). Thus, he would receive her family name.

Royal family names in Egypt then were usually compounded of some expression of reverence or faith or submission and the name of a god, e.g. "loved of," "chosen of," "born of," Thoth, Ptah, Ra or Amon. At this period of Egyptian history, "born of" (Egyptian mes, "drawn out") was joined sometimes to Ah, the name of the moon-god, making Ahmes, or Thoth, the scribe-god, so Thothmes, but usually with Ra, the sun-god, giving Rames, usually anglicized Rameses or Ramoses.

It was the time of the Ramesside dynasty, and the king on the throne was Rameses II. Thus the foundling adopted by Pharaoh's daughter would have the family name Mes or Moses. That it would be joined in the Egyptian to the name of the sungod Ra is practically certain. His name at court would be Ramoses. But to the oriental mind a name must mean something. The usual meaning of this royal name was that the child was "born of" a princess through the intervention of the god Ra. But this child was not "born of" the princess, so falling back upon the primary meaning of the word, "drawn out," she said, "because I drew him out of the water" (Ex 2:10). Thus, Moses received his name. Pharaoh's daughter may have been the eldest daughter of Rameses II, but more probably was the daughter and eldest child of Seti Merenptah I, and sister of the king on the throne. She would be lineal heir to the crown but debarred by her sex. Instead, she bore the title "Pharaoh's Daughter," and, according to Egyptian custom, retained the right to the crown for her first-born son. A not improbable tradition (Josephus, Ant, II, ix, 7) relates that she had no natural son, and Moses thus became heir to the throne, not with the right to supplant the reigning Pharaoh, but to supersede any of his sons.

Very little is known of Moses' youth and early manhood at the court of Pharaoh. He would certainly be educated as a prince, whose right it probably was to be initiated into the mysteries. Thus he was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22), included in which, according to many Egyptologists, was the doctrine of one Supreme God.

Many curious things, whose value is doubtful, are told of Moses by Josephus and other ancient writers (Josephus, Ant, II, ix, 3; xi; CAp, I, 31; compare DB ; for Mohammedan legends, see Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus, Appendix; for rabbinical legends, see Jewish Encyclopedia). Some of these traditions are not incredible but lack authentication. Others are absurd. Egyptologists have searched with very indifferent success for some notice of the great Hebrew at the Egyptian court.

3. Friend of the People:

But the faith of which the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks (Heb 11:23-28) was at work. Moses "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter" (Ex 2:11-14; Acts 7:24). Whether he did so in word, by definite renunciation, or by his espousal of the cause of the slave against the oppressive policy of Pharaoh is of little importance. In either case he became practically a traitor, and greatly imperiled his throne rights and probably his civil rights as well. During some intervention to ameliorate the condition of the state slaves, an altercation arose and he slew an Egyptian (Ex 2:11,12). Thus, his constructive treason became an overt act. Discovering through the ungrateful reproaches of his own kinsmen (Acts 7:25) that his act was known, he quickly made decision, "choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God," casting in his lot with slaves of the empire, rather than "to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," amid the riotous living of the young princes at the Egyptian court; "accounting the reproach of Christ" his humiliation, being accounted a nobody ("Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?") as "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt" (Heb 11:25,26; Acts 7:25-28). He thought to be a nobody and do right better than to be a tyrant and rule Egypt.

4. Refuge in Midian:

Moses fled, "not fearing the wrath of the king" (Heb 11:27), not cringing before it or submitting to it, but defying it and braving all that it could bring upon him, degradation from his high position, deprivation of the privileges and comforts of the Egyptian court. He went out a poor wanderer (Ex 2:15). We are told nothing of the escape and the journey, how he eluded the vigilance of the court guards and of the frontier-line of sentinels. The friend of slaves is strangely safe while within their territory. At last he reached the Sinaitic province of the empire and hid himself away among its mountain fastnesses (Ex 2:15). The romance of the well and the shepherdesses and the grateful father and the future wife is all quite in accord with the simplicity of desert life (Ex 2:16-22). The "Egyptian" saw the rude, selfish herdsmen of the desert imposing upon the helpless shepherd girls, and, partly by the authority of a manly man, partly, doubtless, by the authority of his Egyptian appearance in an age when "Egypt" was a word with which to frighten men in all that part of the world, he compelled them to give way. The "Egyptian" was called, thanked, given a home and eventually a wife. There in Midian, while the anguish of Israel continued under the taskmaster's lash, and the weakening of Israel's strength by the destruction of the male children went on, with what more or less rigor we know not, Moses was left by Providence to mellow and mature, that the haughty, impetuous prince, "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," might be transformed into the wise, well-poised, masterful leader, statesman, lawgiver, poet and prophet. God usually prepares His great ones in the countryside or about some of the quiet places of earth, farthest away from the busy haunts of men and nearest to the "secret place of the Most High." David keeping his father's flocks, Elijah on the mountain slopes of Gilead, the Baptist in the wilderness of Judea, Jesus in the shop of a Galilean carpenter; so Moses a shepherd in the Bedouin country, in the "waste, howling wilderness."

5. Leader of Israel:

(1) The Commission.

One day Moses led the flocks to "the back of the wilderness" (Ex 3:1-12; see BUSH ,BURNING . Moses received his commission, the most appalling commission ever given to a mere man (Ex 3:10)--a commission to a solitary man, and he a refugee--to go back home and deliver his kinsmen from a dreadful slavery at the hand of the most powerful nation on earth. Let not those who halt and stumble over the little difficulties of most ordinary lives think hardly of the faltering of Moses' faith before such a task (Ex 3:11-13; 4:1,10-13). "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" (Ex 3:14), was the encouragement God gave him. He gave him also Aaron for a spokesman (Ex 4:14-16), the return to the Mount of God as a sign (Ex 3:12), and the rod of power for working wonders (Ex 4:17).

One of the curious necessities into which the critical analysis drives its advocates is the opinion concerning Aaron that "he scarcely seems to have been a brother and almost equal partner of Moses, perhaps not even a priest" (Bennett, HDB, III, 441). Interesting and curious speculations have been instituted concerning the way in which Israel and especially Pharaoh were to understand the message, "I AM hath sent me unto you" (Ex 3:13,14; compare 6:3). They were evidently expected to understand this message. Were they to so do by translating or by transliterating it into Egyptian? Some day Egyptologists may be able to answer positively, but not yet.

With the signs for identification (Ex 4:1-10), Moses was ready for his mission. He went down from the "holy ground" to obey the high summons and fulfill the great commission (Ex 4:18-23). After the perplexing controversy with his wife, a controversy of stormy ending (Ex 4:24-26), he seems to have left his family to his father-in-law's care while he went to respond to the call of God (Ex 18:6). He met Aaron, his brother, at the Mount of God (Ex 4:27,28), and together they returned to Egypt to collect the elders of Israel (Ex 4:29-31), who were easily won over to the scheme of emancipation. Was ever a slave people not ready to listen to plans for freedom?

(2) The Conflict with Pharaoh.

The next move was the bold request to the king to allow the people to go into the wilderness to hold a feast unto Yahweh (Ex 5:1). How did Moses gain admittance past the jealous guards of an Egyptian court to the presence of the Pharaoh himself? And why was not the former traitorous refugee at once arrested? Egyptology affords a not too distinct answer. Rameses II was dead (Ex 4:19); Merenptah II was on the throne with an insecure tenure, for the times were troubled. Did some remember the "son of Pharaoh's daughter" who, had he remained loyal, would have been the Pharaoh? Probably so. Thus he would gain admittance, and thus, too, in the precarious condition of the throne, it might well not be safe to molest him. The original form of the request made to the king, with some slight modification, was continued throughout (Ex 8:27; 10:9), though God promised that the Egyptians should thrust them out altogether when the end should come, and it was so (Ex 11:1; 12:31,33,39). Yet Pharaoh remembered the form of their request and bestirred himself when it was reported that they had indeed gone "from serving" them (Ex 14:5). The request for temporary departure upon which the contest was made put Pharaoh's call to duty in the easiest form and thus, also, his obstinacy appears as the greater heinousness. Then came the challenge of Pharaoh in his contemptuous demand, "Who is Yahweh?" (Ex 5:2), and Moses' prompt acceptance of the challenge, in the beginning of the long series of plagues (see PLAGUE ) (Ex 8:1 ff; 12:29-36; 14:31; compare Lamb, Miracle of Science). Pharaoh, having made the issue, was justly required to afford full presentation of it. So Pharaoh's heart was "hardened" (Ex 4:21; 7:3,13; 9:12,35; 10:1; 14:8; see PLAGUE ) until the vindication of Yahweh as God of all the earth was complete. This proving of Yahweh was so conducted that the gods of Egypt were shown to be of no avail against Him, but that He is God of all the earth, and until the faith of the people of Israel was confirmed (Ex 14:31).

(3) Institution of the Passover.

It was now time for the next step in revelation (Ex 12; 13:1-16). At the burning bush God had declared His purpose to be a saviour, not a destroyer. In this contest in Egypt, His absolute sovereignty was being established; and now the method of deliverance by Him, that He might not be a destroyer, was to be revealed. Moses called together the elders (Ex 12:21-28) and instituted the Passover feast. As God always in revelation chooses the known and the familiar--the tree, the bow, circumcision, baptism, and the Supper--by which to convey the unknown, so the Passover was a combination of the household feast with the widespread idea of safety through blood-sacrifice, which, however it may have come into the world, was not new at that time. Some think there is evidence of an old Semitic festival at that season which was utilized for the institution of the Passover.

The lamb was chosen and its use was kept up (Ex 12:3-6). On the appointed night it was killed and "roasted with fire" and eaten with bitter herbs (Ex 12:8), while they all stood ready girded, with their shoes on their feet and their staff in hand (Ex 12:11). They ate in safety and in hope, because the blood of the lamb was on the door (Ex 12:23). That night the firstborn of Egypt were slain. Among the Egyptians "there was not a house where there was not one dead" (Ex 12:30), from the house of the maid-servant, who sat with her handmill before her, to the palace of the king that "sat on the throne," and even among the cattle in the pasture. If the plague was employed as the agency of the angel of Yahweh, as some think, its peculiarity is that it takes the strongest and the best and culminates in one great stunning blow and then immediately subsides (see PLAGUE ). Who can tell the horror of that night when the Israelites were thrust out of the terror-stricken land (Ex 12:39)?

As they went out, they "asked," after the fashion of departing servants in the East, and God gave them favor in the sight of the over-awed Egyptians that they lavished gifts upon them in extravagance. Thus "they despoiled the Egyptians" (Ex 12:36). "Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people" (Ex 11:3; 12:35,36).

(4) The Exodus.

"At the end of 430 years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt" (Ex 12:41). The great oppressor was Rameses II, and the culmination and the revolution came, most probably, in connection with the building of Pithom and Raamses, as these are the works of Israel mentioned in the Bible narrative (Ex 1:11). Rameses said that he built Pithom at the "mouth of the east" (Budge, History of Exodus, V, 123). All efforts to overthrow that statement have failed and for the present, at least, it must stand. Israel built Pithom, Rameses built Pithom; there is a synchronism that cannot in the present knowledge of Egyptian history even be doubted, much less separated. The troubled times which came to Egypt with the beginning of the reign of Merenptah II afforded the psychological moment for the return of the "son of Pharaoh's daughter" and his access to the royal court. The presence and power of Yahweh vindicated His claim to be the Lord of all the earth, and Merenptah let the children of Israel go.

A little later when Israel turned back from the border of Khar (Palestine) into the wilderness and disappeared, and Merenptah's affairs were somewhat settled in the empire, he set up the usual boastful tablet claiming as his own many of the victories of his royal ancestors, added a few which he himself could truly boast, and inserted, near the end, an exultation over Israel's discomfiture, accounting himself as having finally won the victory:

"Tehennu is devastation, Kheta peace, the Canaan the prisoner of all ills;

"Asgalon led out, taken with Gezer, Yenoamam made naught;

"The People of Israel is ruined, his posterity is not; Khar is become as the widows of Egypt."

The synchronisms of this period are well established and must stand until, if it should ever be, other facts of Egyptian history shall be obtained to change them. Yet it is impossible to determine with certainty the precise event from which the descent into Egypt should be reckoned, or to fix the date BC of Moses, Rameses and Merenptah, and the building of Pithom, and so, likewise, the date of the exodus and of all the patriarchal movements. The ancients were more concerned about the order of events, their perspective and their synchronisms than about any epochal date. For the present we must be content with these chronological uncertainties. Astronomical science may sometimes fix the epochal dates for these events; otherwise there is little likelihood that they will ever be known.#

They went out from Succoth (Egyptian "Thuku," Budge, History of Egypt, V, 122, 129), carrying the bones of Joseph with them as he had commanded (Ex 13:19; Gen 50:25). The northeast route was the direct way to the promised land, but it was guarded. Pithom itself was built at "the mouth of the East," as a part of the great frontier defenses (Budge, op. cit., V, 123). The "wall" on this frontier was well guarded (Ex 14), and attempts might be made to stop them. So they went not "by the way of the land of the Philistines .... lest peradventure the people repent when they see war" (Ex 13:17). The Lord Himself took the leadership and went ahead of the host of Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21). He led them by "the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea" (Ex 13:18). They pitched before Pi-hahiroth, over against Baal-zephon between Migdol and the sea (Ex 14:2). Not one of these places has been positively identified. But the Journeys before and after the crossing, the time, and the configuration of the land and the coast-line of the sea, together with all the necessities imposed by the narrative, are best met by a crossing near the modern town of Suez (Naville, Route of the Exodus; Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus), where Ras `Ataka comes down to the sea, upon whose heights a migdhol or "watch-tower," as the southern outpost of the eastern line of Egyptian defenses, would most probably be erected.

Word was carried from the frontier to Pharaoh, probably at Tanis, that the Israelites had "fled" (Ex 14:5), had taken the impassioned thrusting out by the frenzied people of Egypt in good faith and had gone never to return. Pharaoh took immediate steps to arrest and bring back the fugitives. The troops at hand (Ex 14:6) and the chariot corps, including 600 "chosen chariots," were sent at once in pursuit, Pharaoh going out in person at least to start the expedition (Ex 14:6,7). The Israelites seemed to be "entangled in the land," and, since "the wilderness (had) shut them in" (Ex 4:3), must easily fall a prey to the Egyptian army. The Israelites, terror-stricken, cried to Moses. God answered and commanded the pillar of cloud to turn back from its place before the host of Israel and stand between them and the approaching Egyptians, so that while the Egyptians were in the darkness Israel had the light (Ex 14:19,20). The mountain came down on their right, the sea on the left to meet the foot of the mountain in front of them; the Egyptians were hastening on after them and the pillar of cloud and fire was their rearward. Moses with the rod of God stood at the head of the fleeing host. Then God wrought. Moses stretched out the rod of God over the sea and "Yahweh caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night" (Ex 14:16-21). A pathway was before them and the sea on the right hand, and on the left was a "wall unto them," and they passed through (Ex 14:21,22). Such heaping up of the waters by the wind is well known and sometimes amounts to 7 or 8 ft. in Lake Erie (Wright, Scientific Confirmations of the Old Testament, 106). No clearer statement could possibly be made of the means used and of the miraculous timing of God's providence with the obedience of the people to His command to Moses. The host of Israel passed over on the hard, sandy bottom of the sea. The Egyptians coming up in the dark and finding it impossible to tell exactly where the coastline had been on this beach, and where the point of safety would lie when the wind should abate and the tide come in again, impetuously rushed on after the fleeing slaves. In the morning, Yahweh looked forth and troubled the Egyptians "and took off their chariot wheels, and they drove them heavily" (Ex 14:24,25). The wind had abated, the tide was returning and the infiltration that goes before the tide made the beach like a quicksand. The Egyptians found that they had gone too far and tried to escape (Ex 14:27), but it was too late. The rushing tide caught them (Ex 14:28). When the day had come, "horse and rider" were but the subject of a minstrel's song of triumph (Ex 15:1-19; Ps 106:9-12) which Miriam led with her timbrel (Ex 15:20). The Bible does not say, and there is no reason to believe, that Pharaoh led the Egyptian hosts in person further than at the setting off and for the giving of general direction to the campaign (Ex 15:4). Pharaoh and his host were overthrown in the Red Sea (Ps 136:15). So Napoleon and his host were overthrown at Waterloo, but Napoleon lived to die at Helena. And Merenptah lived to erect his boastful inscription concerning the failure of Israel, when turned back from Kadesh-barnea, and their disappearance in the wilderness of Paran. His mummy, identified by the lamented Professor Groff, lies among the royal mummies in the Cairo Museum. Thus at the Red Sea was wrought the final victory of Yahweh over Pharaoh; and the people believed (Ex 14:31).

(5) Special Providences.

Now proceeded that long course of special providences, miraculous timing of events, and multiplying of natural agencies which began with the crossing of the Red Sea and ended only when they "did eat of the fruit of the land" (Josh 5:12). God promised freedom from the diseases of the Egyptians (Ex 15:26) at the bitter waters of Marah, on the condition of obedience. Moses was directed to a tree, the wood of which should counteract the alkaline character of the water (Ex 15:23-25). A little later they were at Elim (Wady Gharandel, in present-day geography), where were "twelve springs of water and three score and ten palm trees" (Ex 15:27). The enumeration of the trees signifies nothing but their scarcity, and is understood by everyone who has traveled in that desert and counted, again and again, every little clump of trees that has appeared. The course of least resistance here is to turn a little to the right and come out again at the Red Sea in order to pass around the point of the plateau into the wilderness of Sin. This is the course travel takes now, and it took the same course then (Ex 16:1). Here Israel murmured (Ex 16:2), and every traveler who crosses this blistering, dusty, wearisome, hungry wilderness joins in the murmuring, and wishes, at least a little, that he had stayed in the land of Egypt (Ex 16:3). Provisions brought from Egypt were about exhausted and the land supplied but little. Judging from the complaints of the people about the barrenness of the land, it was not much different then from what it is now (Nu 20:1-6). Now special providential provision began. "At even .... the quails came up, and covered the camp," and in the morning, after the dew, the manna was found (Ex 16:4-36).

See MANNA ;QUAIL .

At Rephidim was the first of the instances when Moses was called upon to help the people to some water. He smote the rock with the rod of God, and there came forth an abundant supply of water (Ex 17:1-6). There is plenty of water in the wady near this point now. The Amalekites, considering the events immediately following, had probably shut the Israelites off from the springs, so God opened some hidden source in the mountain side. "Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel" (Ex 17:8). Whether the hand which Moses lifted up during the battle was his own hand or a symbolical hand (Ex 17:9-12), thought to have been carried in battle then, as sometimes even yet by the Bedouin, is of no importance. It was in either case a hand stretched up to God in prayer and allegiance, and the battle with Amalek, then as now, fluctuates according as the hand is lifted up or lowered (Ex 17:8-16).

Here Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, met him and brought his wife and children to him (Ex 18:5,6; compare Nu 10:29). A sacrificial feast was held with the distinguished guest (Ex 18:7-12). In the wise counsel of this great desert-priest we see one of the many natural sources of supply for Moses' legal lore and statesmanship. A suggestion of Jethro gave rise to one of the wisest and most far-reaching elements in the civil institutions of Israel, the elaborate system of civil courts (Ex 18:13-26).

(6) Receiving the Law.

At Sinai Moses reached the pinnacle of his career, though perhaps not the pinnacle of his faith. (For a discussion of the location of Sinai, see SINAI ;EXODUS .) It is useless to speculate about the nature of the flames in theophany by fire at Sinai. Some say there was a thunderstorm (HDB); others think a volcanic eruption. The time, the stages of the journey, the description of the way, the topography of this place, especially its admirable adaptability to be the cathedral of Yahweh upon earth, and, above all, the collocation of all the events of the narrative along this route to this spot and to no other--all these exercise an overwhelming influence upon one (compare Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus). If they do not conclusively prove, they convincingly persuade, that here the greatest event between Creation and Calvary took place

Here the people assembled. "And Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked," and above appeared the glory of God. Bounds were set about the mountain to keep the people back (Ex 19:12,13). God was upon the mountain: "Under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness" (Ex 19:16-19; 24:10,16,17), "and God spake all these words" (Ex 20:1-17). Back over the summit of the plain between these two mountain ridges in front, the people fled in terror to the place "afar off" (Ex 20:18), and somewhere about the foot of this mountain a little later the tabernacle of grace was set up (Ex 40:17). At this place the affairs of Moses mounted up to such a pinnacle of greatness in the religious history of the world as none other among men has attained unto. He gave formal announcement of the perfect law of God as a rule of life, and the redeeming mercy of God as the hope through repentance for a world of sinners that "fall short." Other men have sought God and taught men to seek God, some by the works of the Law and some by the way of propitiation, but where else in the history of the world has any one man caught sight of both great truths and given them out?

Moses gathered the people together to make the covenant (Ex 24:1-8), and the nobles of Israel ate a covenant meal there before God (Ex 24:11). God called Moses again to the mountain with the elders of Israel (Ex 24:12). There Moses was with God, fasting 40 days (Ex 34:28). Joshua probably accompanied Moses into the mount (Ex 24:13). There God gave directions concerning the plan of the tabernacle: "See .... that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount" (Heb 8:5-12, summing up Ex 25:40; 26:30; 27:8). This was the statement of the architect to the builder. We can only learn what the pattern was by studying the tabernacle (see TABERNACLE ). It was an Egyptian plan (compare Bible Student, January, 1902). While Moses was engaged in his study of the things of the tabernacle on the mount, the people grew restless and appealed to Aaron (Ex 32:1). In weakness Aaron yielded to them and made them a golden calf and they said, "These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex 32:2-6; compare CALF ,GOLDEN ). This was probably, like the later calf-worship at Bethel and Dan, ancient Semitic bull-worship and a violation of the second commandment Ex 20:5; compare Bible Student, August, 1902). The judgment of God was swift and terrible (32:7-35), and Levi was made the Divine agent (32:25-29). Here first the "tent of meeting" comes into prominence as the official headquarters of the leader of Israel (33:7-11). Henceforth independent and distinct from the tabernacle, though on account of the similarity of names liable to be confused with that building, it holds its place and purpose all through the wanderings to the plain of Moab by Jordan (Dt 31:14). Moses is given a vision of God to strengthen his own faith (Ex 33:12-23; 34:1-35). On his return from communion with God, he had such glory within that it shone out through his face to the terror of the multitude, an adumbration of that other and more glorious transfiguration at which Moses should also appear, and that reflection of it which is sometimes seen in the life of many godly persons (Mt 17:1-13; Mk 9:2-10; Lk 9:28-36).

Rationalistic attempts to account for the phenomena at Sinai have been frequent, but usually along certain lines. The favorite hypothesis is that of volcanic action. God has often used natural agencies in His revelation and in His miracles, and there is no necessary obstacle to His doing so here. But there are two seemingly insuperable difficulties in the way of this naturalistic explanation: one, that since geologic time this has not been a volcanic region; the other, that volcanic eruptions are not conducive to literary inspiration. It is almost impossible to get a sane account from the beholders of an eruption, much less has it a tendency to result in the greatest literature, the most perfect code of laws and the profoundest statesmanship in the world. The human mind can easily believe that God could so speak from Sinai and direct the preparation of such works of wisdom as the Book of the Covenant. Not many will be able to think that Moses could do so during a volcanic eruption at Sinai. For it must be kept in mind that the historical character of the narrative at this point, and the Mosaic authorship of the Book of the Covenant, are generally admitted by those who put forward this naturalistic explanation.

(7) Uncertainties of History.

From this time on to the end of Moses' life, the materials are scant, there are long stretches of silence, and a biographer may well hesitate. The tabernacle was set up at the foot of the "mountain of the law" (Ex 40:17-19), and the world from that day to this has been able to find a mercy-seat at the foot of the mountain of the law. Nadab and Abihu presumptuously offered strange fire and were smitten (Lev 10:1-7). The people were numbered (Nu 1:1 ff). The Passover was kept (Nu 9:1-5).

(8) Journey to Canaan Resumed.

The journey to Canaan began again (Nu 10:11-13). From this time until near the close of the life of Moses the events associated with his name belong for the most part to the story of the wanderings in the wilderness and other subjects, rather than to a biography of Moses. (compare WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL ;AARON ;MIRIAM ;JOSHUA ;CALEB ;BRAZEN SERPENT , etc.). The subjects and references are as follows:

The March (Nu 2:10-18; 9:15-23)

The Complaining (Nu 11:1-3)

The Lusting (Nu 11:4-6,18-35)

The Prophets (Nu 11:16)

Leprosy of Miriam (Nu 12:1-16)

(9) The Border of the Land:

Kadesh-barnea (Nu 13:3-26)

The Spies (Dt 1:22; Nu 13:2,21; 23:27,28-33; 14:1-38)

The Plagues (Nu 14:36,37,40-45)

(10) The Wanderings:

Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Nu 16:1-35)

The Plague (Nu 16:41-50; 17)

Death of Miriam (Nu 20:1)

Sin of Moses and Aaron (Nu 20:2-13; Ps 106:32)

Unfriendliness of Edom (Nu 20:14-21)

Death of Aaron (Nu 20:22-29)

Arad (Nu 21:1-3)

Compassing of Edom (Nu 21:4)

Murmuring (Nu 21:5-7)

Brazen Serpent (Nu 21:8,9; Jn 3:14)

(11) Edom:

The Jordan (Nu 21:10-20)

Sihon (Nu 21:21-32)

Og (Nu 21:33-35)

Balak and Balaam (Nu 22:4; 24:25)

Pollution of the People (Nu 25:6-15)

Numbering of the People (Nu 26)

Joshua Chosen (Nu 27:15-23)

Midianites Punished (Nu 31)

(12) Tribes East of Jordan (Numbers 32)

(13) Moses' Final Acts.

Moses was now ready for the final instruction of the people. They were assembled and a great farewell address was given (Dt 1 through 30:20). Joshua was formally inducted into office (Dt 31:1-8), and to the priests was delivered a written copy of this last announcement of the Law now adapted to the progress made during 40 years (Dt 31:9-13; compare 31:24-29). Moses then called Joshua into the tabernacle for a final charge (Dt 31:14-23), gave to the assembled elders of the people "the words of this song" (Dt 31:30; 32:1-43) and blessed the people (Dt 33). And then Moses, who "by faith" had triumphed in Egypt, had been the great revelator at Sinai, had turned back to walk with the people of little faith for 40 years, reached the greatest triumph of his faith, when, from the top of Nebo, the towering pinnacle of Pisgah, he lifted up his eyes to the goodly land of promise and gave way to Joshua to lead the people in (Dt 34). And there Moses died and was buried, "but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day" (Dt 34:5,6), "and Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died" (Dt 34:7).

This biography of Moses is the binding-thread of the Pentateuch from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy, without disastrous breaks or disturbing repetitions. There are, indeed, silences, but they occur where nothing great or important in the narrative is to be expected. And there are, in the eyes of some, repetitions, so-called doublets, but they do not seem to be any more real than may be expected in any biography that is only incidental to the main purpose of the writer. No man can break apart this narrative of the books without putting into confusion this life-story; the one cannot be treated as independent of the other; any more than the narrative of the English Commonwealth and the story of Cromwell, or the story of the American Revolution and the career of Washington.

Later references to Moses as leader, lawgiver and prophet run all through the Bible; only the most important will be mentioned: Josh 8:30-35; 24:5; 1 Sam 12:6-8; 1 Ch 23:14-17; Ps 77:20; 99:6; 105; 106; Isa 63:11,12; Jer 15:1; Dan 9:11-13; Hos 12:13; Mic 6:4; Mal 4:4.

The place held by Moses in the New Testament is as unique as in the Old Testament, though far less prominent. Indeed, he holds the same place, though presented in a different light. In the Old Testament he is the type of the Prophet to be raised up "like unto" him. It is the time of types, and Moses, the type, is most conspicuous. In the New Testament the Prophet "like unto Moses" has come. He now stands out the greatest One in human history, while Moses, the type, fades away in the shadow. It is thus he appears in Christ's remarkable reference to him: "He wrote of me" (Jn 5:46). The principal thing which Moses wrote specifically of Christ is this passage: "Yahweh thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me" (Dt 18:15,18 f). Again in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is the formal passing over from the types of the Old Testament to the fulfillment in the New Testament, Jesus is made to stand out as the Moses of the new dispensation (Heb 3; 12:24-29). Other most important New Testament references to Moses are Mt 17:3; Mk 9:4; Lk 9:30; Jn 1:17,45; 3:14; Rom 5:14; Jude 1:9; Rev 15:3.

II. Work and Character.

So little is known of the private life of Moses that his personal character can scarcely be separated from the part which he bore in public affairs. It is the work he wrought for Israel and for mankind which fixes his place among the great ones of earth. The life which we have just sketched as the life of the leader of Israel is also the life of the author, the lawgiver, and the prophet.

1. The Author:

It is not within the province of this article to discuss in full the great critical controversies concerning the authorship of Moses which have been summed up against him thus: "It is doubtful whether we can regard Moses as an author in the literary sense" (HDB, III, 446; see PENTATEUCH ;DEUTERONOMY ). It will only be in place here to present a brief statement of the evidence in the case for Moses. There is no longer any question concerning the literary character of the age in which Moses lived. That Moses might have written is indisputable. But did he write, and how much? What evidence bears at these points?

(1) "Moses Wrote."

The idea of writing or of writings is found 60 times in the Pentateuch It is definitely recorded in writing purporting to be by Moses. 7 times that Moses wrote or was commanded to write (Ex 17:14; 34:27; 39:30; Nu 17:2,3; Dt 10:4; 31:24) and frequently of others in his times (Dt 6:9; 27:3; 31:19; Josh 8:32). Joshua at the great convocation at Shechem for the taking of the covenant wrote "these words in the book of the law of God" (Josh 24:26). Thus is declared the existence of such a book but 25 years after the death of Moses (compare Bible Student, 1901, 269-74). It is thus clearly asserted by the Scriptures as a fact that Moses in the wilderness a little after the exodus was "writing" "books."

(2) Moses' Library.

There are many library marks in the Pentateuch, even in those portions which by nearly all, even the most radical, critics are allowed to be probably the writings of Moses. The Pentateuch as a whole has such library marks all over it.

On the one hand this is entirely consistent with the known literary character of the age in which Moses lived. One who was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" might have had in his possession Egyptian records. And the author of this article is of that class to whom Professor Clay refers, who believe "that Hebraic (or Amoraic) literature, as well as Aramaic, has a great antiquity prior to the 1st millennium BC" (Clay, Amurru, 32).

On the other hand, the use of a library to the extent indicated by the abiding marks upon the Pentateuch does not in the least militate against the claim of Moses for authorship of the same. The real library marks, aside from the passages which are assigned by the critics to go with them, are far less numerous and narrower in scope than in Gibbon or in Kurtz. The use of a library no more necessarily endangers authorship in the one case than in the other.

(3) The Moses-Tradition.

A tradition from the beginning universally held, and for a long time and without inherent absurdity, has very great weight. Such has been the Moses-tradition of authorship. Since Moses is believed to have been such a person living in such an age and under such circumstances as might suitably provide the situation and the occasion for such historical records, so that common sense does not question whether he could have written "a" Pentateuch, but only whether he did write "the" Pentateuch which we have, it is easier to believe the tradition concerning his authorship than to believe that such a tradition arose with nothing so known concerning his ability and circumstances. But such a tradition did arise concerning Moses. It existed in the days of Josiah. Without it, by no possibility could the people have been persuaded to receive with authority a book purporting to be by him. The question of the truthfulness of the claim of actually finding the Book of the Law altogether aside, there must have been such a national hero as Moses known to the people and believed in by them, as well as a confident belief in an age of literature reaching back to his days, else the Book of the Law would not have been received by the people as from Moses. Archaeology does not supply actual literary material from Israel much earlier than the time of Josiah, but the material shows a method of writing and a literary advancement of the people which reaches far back for its origin, and which goes far to justify the tradition in Josiah's day. Moreover, to the present time, there is no archaeological evidence to cast doubt upon that tradition.

(4) The Pentateuch in the Northern Kingdom.

The evidence of the Pentateuch in the Northern Kingdom before the fall of Samaria is very strong--this entirely aside from any evidence from the Sam Pentateuch. Although some few insist upon an early date for that book, it is better to omit it altogether from this argument, as the time of its composition is not absolutely known and is probably not very far from the close of the Babylonian exile of Judah. But the prophets supply indubitable evidence of the Pentateuch in the Northern Kingdom (Hos 1:10; 4:6; 8:1,13; 9:11; 12:9; Am 5:21,22; 8:5; compare Green, Higher Criticism and the Pentateuch, 56-58).

(5) Evidence for the Mosaic Age.

Beyond the limit to which historical evidence reaches concerning the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, internal evidence for the Mosaic age as the time of its composition carries us back to the very days of Moses. Egyptian words in the Pentateuch attest its composition in the Mosaic age, not because they are Egyptian words, for it is quite supposable that later authors might have known Egyptian words, but because they are Egyptian words of such marked peculiarities in meaning and history and of such absolutely accurate use in the Pentateuch, that their employment by later authors in such a way is incredible. The list of such words is a long one. Only a few can be mentioned here. For a complete list the authorities cited must be consulted. There is ye'or, for the streams of Egypt; achu, for the marshy pasture lands along the Nile; shesh, for the "fine white linen" of the priests; "the land of Rameses" for a local district in lower Egypt; tsaphenath pa`neach, Joseph's Egyptian name, and acenath, the name of Joseph's Egyptian wife, and many other Egyptian words (see Lieblein, inPSBA , May, 1898, 202-10; also The Bible Student, 1901, 36-40).

(6) The Obscurity of the Doctrine of the Resurrection in the Pentateuch.

This obscurity has been urged against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Because of the popular belief concerning the doctrine of the resurrection among the Egyptians, this objection to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch becomes the most forcible of all the objections urged by critics. If the Pentateuch was written by Moses when Israel had just come out of Egypt, why did he leave the doctrine of the resurrection in such obscurity? The answer is very simple. The so-called Egyptian doctrine of the resurrection was not a doctrine of resurrection at all, but a doctrine of resuscitation. The essential idea of resurrection, as it runs through Scripture from the first glimpse of it until the declaration of Paul: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:35-45), is almost absolutely beyond the Egyptian vision of the future life. With the Egyptians the risen body was to live the same old life on "oxen, geese, bread, beer, wine and all good things" (compare for abundant illustration Maspero's Guide to Cairo Museum). The omission of the doctrine of the resurrection from the Pentateuch at the later date assigned by criticism is very hard to account for. In view of some passages from the Psalms and the Prophets, it appears inexplicable (Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:10; 49:15; Isa 26:19; Ezek 37; Dan 12:2). The gross materialism of the Egyptian doctrine of the rising from the dead makes the obscurity of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Pentateuch in Moses' day perfectly natural. Any direct mention of the subject at that time among a people just come out of Egypt would have carried at once into Israel's religion the materialism of the Egyptian conception of the future life. The only way by which the people could be weaned away from these Egyptian ideas was by beginning, as the Pentateuch does, with more spiritual ideas of God, of the other world and of worship. The obscurity of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Pentateuch, so far from being against the Mosaic authorship, is very cogent reason for believing the Pentateuch to have come from that age, as the only known time when such an omission is reasonably explicable. Lord, in his lectures, though not an Egyptologist, caught sight of this truth which later work of Egyptologists has made clear (Moses, 45). Warburton had a less clear vision of it (see Divine Legation).

(7) The Unity of the Pentateuch.

Unity in the Pentateuch, abstractly considered, cannot be indicative of particular time for its composition. Manifestly, unity can be given a book at any time. There is indisputably a certain appearance of unity in narrative in the Pentateuch, and when this unity is examined somewhat carefully, it is found to have such peculiarity as does point to the Mosaic age for authorship. The making of books which have running through them such a narrative as is contained in the Pentateuch which, especially from the end of Genesis, is entangled and interwoven with dates and routes and topographical notes, the history of experiences, all so accurately given that in large part to this day the route and the places intended can be identified, all this, no matter when the books were written, certainly calls for special conditions of authorship. A narrative which so provides for all the exigencies of desert life and so anticipates the life to which Israel looked forward, exhibits a realism which calls for very special familiarity with all the circumstances. And when the narrative adds to all this the life of a man without breaks or repetitions adverse to the purpose of a biography, and running through from beginning to end, and not a haphazard, unsymmetrical man such as might result from the piecing together of fragments, but a colossal and symmetrical man, the foremost man of the world until a greater than Moses should appear, it demands to be written near the time and place of the events narrated. That a work of fiction, struck off at one time by one hand, might meet all these requirements at a later date, no one can doubt, but a scrap-book, even though made up of facts, cannot do so. In fact, the scraps culled. out by the analysis of the Pentateuch do not make a connected life-story at all, but three fragmentary and disconnected stories, and turn a biography, which is the binding-thread of the books, into what is little better than nonsense.

The unity of the Law, which also can be well sustained, is to the same effect as the unity of the narrative in certifying the narrative near to the time and place of the events narrated. The discussion of the unity of the Law, which involves nearly the whole critical controversy of the day, would be too much of a digression for an article on Moses (see LAW ;LEVITICUS ;DEUTERONOMY ; also Green, Higher Criticism and the Pent; Orr,POT ; Wiener, Biblical Sac., 1909--10).

Neither criticism nor archaeology has yet produced the kind or degree of evidence which rationalism demands for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. No trace has yet been found either of the broken tablets at Mt. Sinai or of the autograph copy of the Law of the Lord "by the hand of Moses" brought out of the house of the Lord in the days of Josiah. Nor are these things likely to be found, nor anything else that will certify authorship like a transcription of the records in the copyright office. Such evidence is not reasonably demanded. The foregoing indications point very strongly to the production of the Pentateuch in the Mosaic age by someone as familiar with the circumstances and as near the heart of the nation as Moses was. That here and there a few slight additions may have been made and that, perhaps, a few explanations made by scribes may have slipped into the text from the margin are not unlikely (Nu 12:3; Dt 34), but this does not affect the general claim of authorship.

Ps 90 is also attributed to Moses, though attempts have been made to discredit his authorship here also (Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms). There are those who perhaps still hold to the Mosaic authorship of the Book of Job. But that view was never more than a speculation.

2. The Lawgiver:

The character of Moses as lawgiver is scarcely separable from that of Moses as author, but calls for some separate consideration.

(1) The extent of the Mosaic element in the Pentateuch legislation has been so variously estimated that for any adequate idea of the discussion the reader must consult not only other articles (LAW; COVENANT, BOOK OF THE; PENTATEUCH) but special works on this subject. In accord with the reasons presented above for the authorship of the Pentateuch in Mosaic times, the great statesman seems most naturally the author of the laws so interwoven with his life and leadership. Moses first gave laws concerning the Passover (Ex 13). At Sinai, after the startling revelation from the summit of the mountain, it is most reasonable that Moses should gather the people together to covenant with God, and should record that event in the short code of laws known as the Book of the Covenant (Ex 24:7). This code contains the Moral Law (Ex 20:1-17) as fundamental, the constitution of theocracy and of all ethical living. This is followed by a brief code suitable to their present condition and immediate prospects (Ex 20:24-26; 21 through 23). Considering the expectations of both leader and people that they would immediately proceed to the promised land and take possession, it is quite in order that there should be laws concerning vineyards and olive orchards (Ex 23:11), and harvests (Ex 23:10-16) and the first-fruits (Ex 23:19). Upon the completion of the tabernacle, a priest-code became a necessity. Accordingly, such a code follows with great minutiae of directions. This part of the Law is composed almost entirely of "laws of procedure" intended primarily for the priests, that they might know their own duties and give oral instruction to the people, and probably was never meant for the whole people except in the most general way. When Israel was turned back into the wilderness, these two codes were quite sufficient for the simple life of the wanderings. But Israel developed. The rabble became a nation. Forty years of life under law, under the operation of the Book of the Covenant in the moralities of life, the Priestly Code in their religious exercises, and the brief statutes of Leviticus for the simple life of the desert, prepared the people for a more elaborate code as they entered the promised land with its more complex life. Accordingly, in Deuteronomy that code was recorded and left for the guidance of the people. That these various codes contain some things not now understood is not at all surprising. It would be surprising if they did not. Would not Orientals of today find some things in Western laws quite incomprehensible without explanation?

That some few items of law may have been added at a later time, as some items of history were added to the narrative, is not at all unreasonable, and does in no way invalidate the claim of Moses as the lawgiver, any more than later French legislation has invalidated the Corsican's claim to the Napoleonic Code.

The essential value of the Mosaic legislation is beyond comparison. Some of the laws of Moses, relating as they did to passing problems, have themselves passed away; some of them were definitely abrogated by Christ and others explicitly fulfilled; but much of his legislation, moral, industrial, social and political, is the warp and woof of the best in the great codes of the world to this day. The morality of the Decalogue is unapproached among collections of moral precepts. Its divinity, like the divinity of the teachings of Jesus, lies not only in what it includes, but also in what it omits. The precepts of Ptah-hotep, of Confucius, of Epictetus include many things found in the Decalogue; the Decalogue omits many things found among the maxims of these moralists. Thus, in what it excludes, as in what it includes, the perfection of the Decalogue lies.

(2) It should be emphasized that the laws of Moses were codes, not a collection of court decisions known to lawyers as common law, but codes given abstractly, not in view of any particular concrete case, and arranged in systematic order (Wiener, Biblical Sac., 1909-10). This is entirely in harmony with the archaeological indications of the Mosaic and preceding ages. The Code of Hammurabi, given at least 5 centuries before, is one of the most orderly, methodical and logical codes ever constructed (Lyon, JAOS, XXV, 254).

3. The Prophet:

The career and the works and the character of Moses culminate in the prophetic office. It was as prophet that Moses was essentially leader. It was as prophet that he held the place of highest eminence in the world until a greater than Moses came.

(1) The statesman-prophet framed a civil government which illustrated the kingdom of God upon earth. The theocracy did not simulate any government of earth, monarchy, republic or socialistic state. It combined the best elements in all of these and set up the most effective checks which have ever been devised against the evils of each.

(2) The lawgiver-prophet inculcated maxims and laws which set the feet of the people in the way of life, so that, while failing as a law of life in a sinful world, these precepts ever remain as a rule of conduct.

(3) The priest-prophet prepared and gave to Israel a ritual of worship which most completely typified the redemptive mercy of God and which is so wonderfully unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as it has been more wonderfully fulfilled in the life and atoning death of Christ.

(4) In all the multiform activities of the prophetic career he was a type of Christ, the type of Christ whose work was a "tutor unto Christ."

Moses' revelation of God ever transcends the speculations of theologians about God as a sunrise transcends a treatise on the solar spectrum. While the speculations are cold and lifeless, the revelation is vital and glorious. As an analysis of Raphael's painting of the transfiguration belittles its impression upon the beholder, while a sight of the picture exalts that scene in the mind and heart, so the attempts of theologians to analyze God and bring Him within the grasp of the human mind belittle the conception of God, dwarf it to the capacity of the human intellect, while such a vision of Him as Moses gives exalts and glorifies Him beyond expression. Thus, while theologians of every school from Athanasius to Ritschl come and go, Moses goes on forever; while they stand cold on library shelves, he lives warm in the hearts of men.

Such was the Hebrew leader, lawgiver, prophet, poet; among mere men, "the foremost man of all this world."

LITERATURE.

Commentaries on the Pentateuch; for rabbinical traditions, compare Lauterbach in Jewish Encyclopedia; for pseudepigraphical books ascribed to Moses, see Charles, Assumption of Moses; for Mohammedan legends, compareDB ; Ebers, Egypten und die Bucher Mosis; for critical partition of books of Moses, compare the Polychrome Bible and Bennett inHDB ; for comprehensive discussion of the critical problems, comparePOT .

M. G. Kyle


MOSES, ASSUMPTION OF

a-sump'-shun.

See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE .


MOSES, SONG OF

The name given to the song of triumph sung by Moses and the Israelites after the crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of the hosts of Pharaoh (Ex 15:1-18). The sublimity of this noble ode is universally admitted. In magnificent strains it celebrates the deliverance just experienced, extolling the attributes of Yahweh revealed in the triumph (Ex 15:1-12), then anticipates the astonishing effects which would flow from this deliverance in the immediate future and later (Ex 15:13-18). There seems no reason to doubt that at least the basis of the song--possibly the whole--is genuinely Mosaic. In the allusions to the guidance of the people to God's holy habitation, and to the terror of the surrounding peoples and of the Canaanites (Ex 15:13-18), it is thought that traces are manifest of a later revision and expansion. This, however, is by no means a necessary conclusion.

Driver, who in LOT, 8th edition, 30, goes with the critics on this point, wrote more guardedly in the 1st edition (p. 27): "Probably, however, the greater part of the song is Mosaic, and the modification or expansion is limited to the closing verses; for the general style is antique. and the triumphant tone which pervades it is just such as might naturally have been inspired by the event which it celebrates."

The song of Moses is made the model in the Apocalypse of "the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb," which those standing by the sea of glass, who have "come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name," sing to God's praise, "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty," etc. (Rev 15:2-4). The church having experienced a deliverance similar to that experienced by Israel at the Red Sea, but infinitely greater, the old song is recast, and its terms are readapted to express both victories, the lower and the higher, at once.

James Orr


MOSOLLAMON

mo-sol'-a-mon.

See MOSOLLAMUS .


MOSOLLAMUS

mo-sol'-a-mus:

(1) the King James Version "Mosollam" (Mosollamos), one of the three "assessors" appointed to the two commissioners in the inquiry made about "strange wives" (1 Esdras 9:14) = "Meshullam" in Ezr 10:15.

(2) the King James Version "Mosollamon," one of those sent by Ezra to the captain Loddeus to obtain men who could execute the priest's office (1 Esdras 8:44 (Septuagint 43)) = "Meshullam" in Ezr 8:16 (Codex Vaticanus reads also Mesolabon, in 1 Esdras 8:44).


MOST HIGH, MOST HOLY

See GOD ,NAMES OF .


MOTE

mot (karphos): A minute piece of anything dry or light, as straw, chaff, a splinter of wood, that might enter the eye. Used by Jesus in Mt 7:3 ff; Lk 6:41 f in contrast with "beam," to rebuke officiousness in correcting small faults of others, while cherishing greater ones of our own.


MOTH

moth (`ash; compare Arabic `uththat, "moth"; colloquial, `itt; cac, "worm" (Isa 51:8); compare Arabic sus, "worm," especially an insect larva in flesh, wood or grain; ses, "moth" (Mt 6:19,20; Lk 12:33); setobrotos, "moth-eaten" (Jas 5:2)):

The moths constitute the larger division of the order Lepidoptera. Two of the points by which they are distinguished from butterflies are that they are generally nocturnal and that their antennae are not club-shaped. Further, the larva in many cases spins a cocoon for the protection of the pupa or chrysalis, which is never the case with butterflies. The Biblical references are to the clothes-moth, i.e. various species of the genus Tinea, tiny insects which lay their eggs in woolen clothes, upon which the larvae later feed. As the larva feeds it makes a cocoon of its silk together with fibers of the cloth on which it is feeding, so that the color of the cocoon depends upon the color of the fabric. The adult is only indirectly harmful, as it is only in the larval stage that the insect injures clothing. Therefore in Isa 51:8, "For the moth (`ash) shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm (cac) shall eat them like wool," both words must refer to the larva, the distich demanding such a word as cac to balance `ash in the first half. The word "moth" occurs 7 times in the Old Testament, in Job, Psalms, Isaiah and Hosea, always in figurative expressions, typifying either that which is destructive (Job 13:28; Ps 39:11; Isa 50:9; 51:8; Hos 5:12) or that which is frail (Job 4:19; 27:18).

See INSECTS .

Alfred Ely Day


MOTHER

muth'-er ('em, "mother," "dam," "ancestress"; meter):

1. Her Position in the Old Testament:

In vain do we look in the Scriptures for traces of the low position which woman occupies in many eastern lands. A false impression has been created by her present position in the East, especially under Mohammedan rule. Her place as depicted in the Scriptures is a totally different one. Women there move on the same social plane with men. They often occupy leading public positions (Ex 15:20; Jdg 4:4; 2 Ki 22:14). The love of offspring was deeply imbedded in the heart of Hebrew women, and thus motherhood was highly respected. Among the patriarchs women, and especially mothers, occupy a prominent place. In Rebekah's marriage, her mother seems to have had equal voice with her father and Laban, her brother (Gen 24:28,50,53,55). Jacob "obeyed his father and his mother" (Gen 28:7), and his mother evidently was his chief counselor. The Law places the child under obligation of honoring father and mother alike (Ex 20:12). The child that strikes father or mother or curses either of them is punished by death (Ex 21:15,17). The same fate overtakes the habitually disobedient (Dt 21:18-21).

In one place in the Law, the mother is even placed before the father as the object of filial reverence (Lev 19:3). The Psalmist depicts deepest grief as that of one who mourneth for his mother (Ps 35:14). In the entire Book of Proverbs the duty of reverence, love and obedience of sons to their mothers is unceasingly inculcated. The greatest comfort imaginable is that wherewith a mother comforts her son (Isa 66:13).

2. Position in the New Testament:

And what is true of the Old Testament is equally true of the New Testament. The same high type of womanhood, the same reverence for one's mother is in evidence in both books. The birth of Christ lifted motherhood to the highest possible plane and idealized it for all time. The last thing Jesus did on the Cross was to bestow His mother on John "the beloved" as his special inheritance. What woman is today, what she is in particular in her motherhood, she owes wholly to the position in which the Scriptures have placed her. Sometimes the stepmother is spoken of as the real mother (Gen 37:10). Sometimes the grandmother or other female relative is thus spoken of (Gen 3:20; 1 Ki 15:10).

Tropically the nation is spoken of as a mother and the people are her children (Isa 50:1; Jer 50:12; Hos 2:4; 4:5). Large cities also are "mothers" (2 Sam 20:19; compare Gal 4:26; 2 Esdras 10:7), and Job even depicts the earth as such (Job 1:21).

Henry E. Dosker


MOTHER-IN-LAW

See RELATIONSHIPS ,FAMILY .


MOTION

mo'-shun: In 2 Esdras 6:14, the King James Version "motion" represents the Latin commotio, "commotion," "disturbance" (the Revised Version (British and American) has revised entirely here). In Rom 7:5, "the motions of sins, which were by the law," "motion" is used in the sense of "impulse," and "impulses" would probably give the best translation. But the Greek noun (pathemata) is hard to translate exactly, and the Revised Version (British and American) has preferred "passions," as in Gal 5:24. Sanday (ICC) paraphrases "the impressions of sense, suggestive of sin, stimulated into perverse activity by their legal prohibition." See PASSION . "Motion" is found also in The Wisdom of Solomon 5:11 (the King James Version and the Revised Version margin) and The Wisdom of Solomon 7:24 (the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American)) in a modern sense.

Burton Scott Easton


MOUND

mound.

See SIEGE , 4, (c).


MOUNT EPHRAIM

See EPHRAIM ,MOUNT .


MOUNT OF CONGREGATION, THE

See CONGREGATION ,MOUNT OF .


MOUNT OF CORRUPTION

See OLIVES ,MOUNT OF .


MOUNT OF OLIVES

See OLIVES ,MOUNT OF ;JERUSALEM .


MOUNT OF THE AMALEKITES

("Hill-country of the Amalekites" (Jdg 12:15)): The Amalekites are usually connected with the valley (Nu 14:25; Jdg 7:12), but appear from this passage to have had a settlement in the hill country of Ephraim.

See AMALEKITE .


MOUNT OF THE AMORITES

("Hill-country of the Amorites" (Dt 1:7,20,24; compare Nu 13:29; Josh 10:6, etc.)): The region intended is that afterward known as the hill country of Judah and Ephraim, but sometimes "Amorites" is used as a general designation for all the inhabitants of Canaan (Gen 15:16; Josh 24:8,18, etc.).

See AMORITES .


MOUNT OF THE VALLEY

Zereth-shahar is said to be situated in or on the "mount of the valley" (behar ha`emeq (Josh 13:19)). Cheyne (EB, under the word) says "i.e. on one of the mountains East of the Jordan valley (compare Josephus 13 27), and not impossibly on that described at length inBJ ,VII , vi, 1-3." To the Northwest of this mountain is Wady ec-Cara, wherein there may be a reminiscence of Zereth-shahar. There is no certainty.


MOUNT; MOUNTAIN

mount, moun'-tin.

See HILL ,MOUNT ,MOUNTAIN .


MOURNING

morn'-ing.

See BURIAL ;GRIEF .


MOUSE; MICE

mous, mis (`akhbar; Septuagint mus, "mouse"; compare Arabic `akbar, "jerboa" not 'akbar, "greater"; compare also proper noun, `akhbor, "Achbor" (Gen 36:38 f; 1 Ch 1:49; also 2 Ki 22:12,14; Jer 26:22; 36:12)): The word occurs in the list of unclean "creeping things" (Lev 11:29), in the account of the golden mice and tumors (the King James Version and the American Revised Version margin "emerods") sent by the Philistines (1 Sam 6:4-18), and in the phrase, "eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse" (Isa 66:17). The cosmopolitan housemouse, Mus musculus, is doubtless the species referred to. The jerboa or jumping mouse, Arabic yarbu, is eaten by the Arabs of the Syrian desert, Northeast of Damascus. Possibly allied to `akhbar is the Arabic `akbar (generally in plural, `akabir), used for the male of the jerboa.

Alfred Ely Day


MOUTH

mowth (peh, chekh, garon (Ps 149:6); Aramaic pum, tera (Dan 3:26); stoma, 71 times, once logos, i.e. "word of mouth," "speech" (Acts 15:27); once we find the verb epistomizo, "to silence," "to stop the mouth" (Tit 1:11)):

1. Literal Sense:

In addition to frequent references to man and animals, "Their food was yet in their mouths" (Ps 78:30); "And Yahweh opened the mouth of the ass" (Nu 22:28); "Save me from the lion's mouth" (Ps 22:21), etc., the term is often used in connection with inanimate things: mouth of a sack (Gen 42:27); of the earth (Gen 4:11; Nu 26:10); of a well (Nu 29:2,3,8,10); of a cave (Josh 10:18,22,27); of Sheol (Ps 141:7); of the abyss (Jer 48:28); of furnace (Aramaic tera`, Dan 3:26); of idols (Ps 115:5; 135:16,17).

2. Figurative Sense:

(1) The "mouth" denotes language, speech, declaration (compare "lips," "tongue," which see): "By the mouth of" is "by means of," "on the declaration of" (Lk 1:70; Acts 1:16); "Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses" (Nu 35:30; compare Dt 17:6; Mt 18:16; Heb 10:28); "I will give you mouth and wisdom" (Lk 21:15); "fool's mouth" (Prov 18:7). (2) "Mouth" also denotes "spokesman": "He shall be to thee a mouth" (Ex 4:16).

Numerous are the idiomatic phrases which have, in part, been introduced into English by means of the language of the Bible. "To put into the mouth," if said of God, denotes Divine inspiration (Dt 18:18; Mic 3:5). "To have words put into the mouth" means to have instructions given (Dt 31:19; 2 Sam 14:3; Jer 1:9; Ex 4:11-16). "The fruit of the mouth" (Prov 18:20) is synonymical with wisdom, the mature utterance of the wise. "To put one's mouth into the dust" is equivalent with humbling one's self (Lam 3:29; compare "to lay one's horn in the dust," Job 16:15). Silent submission is expressed by "laying the hand upon the mouth" (Jdg 18:19; Job 29:9; 40:4; Mic 7:16); compare "to refrain the lips"; seeLIP . "To open the mouth wide" against a person is to accuse him wildly and often wrongfully (Ps 35:21; Isa 57:4), otherwise "to open one's mouth wide," "to have an enlarged mouth" means to have great confidence and joy in speaking or accepting good things (1 Sam 2:1; Ezek 33:22; 2 Cor 6:11; Eph 6:19). "To gape upon one with the mouth" means to threaten a person (Job 16:10). Divine rebuke is expressed by the "rod of God's mouth" (Isa 11:4), and the Messiah declares "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword" (Isa 49:2; compare Rev 2:16; 19:15,21). Great anguish, such as dying with thirst, is expressed by "the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth" (Hebrew chekh, Job 29:10; Ps 137:6; compare 22:15).

H. L. E. Luering


MOWING; MOWN GRASS

mo'-ing, (gez, "a shearing," "cut grass"): In Ps 72:6 the good king's rule is said to be "like rain upon the mown grass," to start the new growth (compare 2 Sam 23:4; Hos 6:3). "The king's mowings" (Am 7:1) were the portion of the spring herbage taken as tribute by the kings of Israel to feed their horses (compare 1 Sam 8:15 ff; 18:5). "After the king's mowings" would denote the time when everybody else might turn to reap their greenstuffs (BTP, II, 109). The term "mower" (qatsar, "to dock off," "shorten") in Ps 129:7 the King James Version is rendered "reaper" in the Revised Version (British and American), and in Jas 5:4 the Revised Version (British and American) has "mow" for amao (the King James Version "reap").

See HARVEST ;REAPING .

M. O. Evans


MOZA

mo'-za (motsah):

(1) Son of Caleb and Ephah (1 Ch 2:46).

(2) A descendant of Saul (1 Ch 8:36,37; 9:42,43).


MOZAH

mo'-za (ha-motsah; Codex Vaticanus Amoke; Codex Alexandrinus Amosa): A town in the territory of Benjamin named after Mizpeh and Chephirah (Josh 18:26). It may be represented by the modern Beit Mizzeh, the heavy "ts" of the Hebrew letter (tsade) passing into the light "z" of the Arabic, a not unusual change. The name means "place of hard stone." The village lies to the North of Quloniyeh (possibly Emmaus), about 4 miles Northwest of Jerusalem.



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