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POCHERETH-HAZZEBAIM

pok'-e-reth, po'-ke-reth, po-ke'-reth, -ha-ze-ba'-im (pokhereth hatstsebhayim (Ezr 2:57), or pokhereth ha-tsebhayim (Neh 7:59), "binder (feminine) of the gazelles"): Name of the head of a post-exilic family. The first word is a feminine Kal participle; compare qoheleth ("preacher"), the Hebrew title of the Book of Eccl. BDB suggests that the feminine is that of office. King James Version has "Pochereth of Zebaim" in Ezr, but Ryle (Cambridge Bible, 235) notes that "of" is not in the 1611 edition


POET

po'-et (poietes, "a maker"): Occurs in this sense only in Acts 17:28, where Paul quotes from the general expression of Greek mythology. The quotation if intended to be exact is probably from Aratus, as the words of Paul in his speech at Athens precisely agree with the opening words of the Phaenomena by Aratus. A similar but not identical expression is found in the Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes. Aratus in his poem endeavors to posit Jupiter as the father and controller of all things, and worthy to be worshipped. In both his poem and that of Cleanthes, but especially in the latter, there is a true and lofty note of spiritual devotion. Paul takes this praise and devotion offered by the Greek poets to their unknown or fictitious gods and bestows it upon the one true God whom he declared unto the people of Athens.

C. E. Schenk


POETRY, HEBREW

po'-et-ri:

I. IS THERE POETRY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT?

Poetry Defined:

1. In Matter, Concrete and Imaginative

2. In Form, Emotional and Rhythmical

II. NEGLECT OF HEBREW POETRY: CAUSES

III. CHARACTERISTICS OF HEBREW POETRY, EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL

1. External or Formal Characteristics

(1) Vocabulary

(2) Grammar

(3) Rhythm

(4) Parallelism

(5) Other Literary Devices

(6) Units of Hebrew Poetry

(7) Classification of Stichs or Verses

2. Internal or Material Characteristics

(1) Themes of Hebrew Poetry

(2) Species of Hebrew Poetry

IV. POETICAL WRITINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

1. The Poetical Books in the Narrow Sense

2. Customary Division of the Poetical Books

3. Poetry in Non-poetical Books

LITERATURE

By Hebrew poetry in the present article is meant that of the Old Testament. There is practically no poetry in the New Testament, but, in the Old Testament Apocrypha, Sirach is largely poetical and Wisdom only less so. Post-Biblical Hebrew poetry could not be discussed here.

I. Is There Poetry in the Old Testament?

Poetry Defined:

It is impossible to answer this question without first of all stating what poetry really is. The present writer submits the following as a correct definition: "Poetry is verbal composition, imaginative and concrete in matter, and emotional and rhythmic in form." This definition recognizes two aspects of poetry, the formal and the material.

1. In Matter Concrete and Imaginative

The substance of poetry must be concrete--it is philosophy that deals with the abstract; and it has to be the product more or less of the creative imagination.

2. In Form Emotional and Rhythmical

It is of the essence of poetry that, like music, it should be expressed in rhythmical but not necessarily in metrical form. Moreover, the language has to be such as will stir up the aesthetic emotions. Adopting this account of poetry as criticism, it may unhesitatingly be affirmed that the Hebrew Scriptures contain a goodly amount of genuine poetry; compare the Psalms, Job, Canticles, etc. It is strange but true that poetical is older than prose written composition. An examination of the literature of the ancient Indians, Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks and Arabs makes this quite certain.

II. Neglect of Hebrew Poetry: Causes.

Notwithstanding the undoubted fact that poetry is largely represented in the Bible, it is noteworthy that this species of Bible literature was almost wholly ignored until the 18th century. We may perhaps ascribe this fact mainly to two causes: (1) Since the Bible was regarded as preeminently, if not exclusively, a revelation of the divine mind, attention was fixed upon what it contained, to the neglect of the literary form in which it was expressed. Indeed it was regarded as inconsistent with its lofty, divine function to look upon it as literature at all, since in this last the appeal is made, at least to a large extent, to the aesthetic and therefore carnal man. The aim contemplated by Bible writers was practical--the communication of religious knowledge--not literary, and still less artistic. It was therefore regarded as inconsistent with such a high purpose that these writers should trouble themselves about literary embellishment or beautiful language, so long as the sense was clear and unambiguous. It was in this spirit and animated by this conception that toward the middle of the 19th century. Isaac Taylor of Ongar (The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1861, 56 ff) and Keil of Dorpat (Introduction to the Old Testament, 1881, I, 437) denied on a priori grounds the presence of epic and dramatic poetry in the Bible. How, they exclaimed, could God countenance the writing of fiction which is untruth--and the epic and the drama have both? Matthew Arnold rendered invaluable service to the cause of Bible science when he fulminated against theologians, Jewish and Christian, for making the Bible a mere collection of proof texts, an arsenal whence religious warriors might get weapons with which to belabor their opponents. "The language of the Bible is fluid .... and literary, not rigid, fixed, scientific" (Preface to the first edition of Literature and Dogma). The Bible contains literature, poetical and prose, equal as literature to the best, as Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, and Froude (on Job) held. The neglect of this aspect of the Scriptures made theologians blind to the presence and therefore ignorant of the character of Bible poetry. (2) Another factor which led to the neglect of the poetical element in the Old Testament is the undoubted fact that Biblical Hebrew poets were less conscious as poets than western poets, and thought much less of the external form in which they expressed themselves. Bible poetry lacks therefore such close adherence to formal rules as that which characterizes Greek, Arabic or English poetry. The authors wrote as they felt and because they felt, and their strong emotions dictated the forms their words took, and not any objective standards set up by the schools. Hebrew poetry is destitute of meter in the strict sense, and also of rhyme, though this last occurs in some isolated cases (see below,III , 1, (4), c and e) . No wonder then that western scholars, missing these marks of the poetry which they knew best, failed for so long to note the poetry which the Old Testament contains.

III. Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry: External and Internal.

The definition of poetry accepted in I, above, implies that there are marks by which poetry can be distinguished from prose. This is equally true of Hebrew poetry, though this last lacks some of the features of the poetry of western nations.

1. External or Formal Characteristics:

(1) Vocabulary.

There are several Hebrew words which occur most frequently and in some cases exclusively in poetry. In the following list the corresponding prose word is put in parenthesis: millah, "word" (= dabhar); enosh, "man" (= 'ish); orach, "way" (= derekh); chazah, "to see" (= ra'ah); the prepositions ele, "to," adhe, "unto," ale, "upon," and minni, "from," instead of the shorter forms el, adh, al, and min. The pronoun zu, rare in prose, has in poetry the double function of a demonstrative and a relative pronoun in both genders. The negative bal, is used for lo'. For the inseparable prepositions "b", "k", "l" ("in," "as," "to") the separate forms bemo, kemo and lemo are employed.

(2) Grammar.

(a) Accidence:

The pronominal suffixes have peculiar forms in poetry. For -m, -am, -em ("their," "them") we find the longer forms -mo, -amo, -emo. For the plural ending of nouns -n (-in) takes the place of -m (-im), as in Aramaic (compare Job 4:2; 12:11), and frequently obsolete case endings are preserved, but their functions are wholly lost. Thus, we have the old nominative ending -o in Ps 50:10, etc.; the old genitive ending -i in Isa 1:21, and the accusative -ah in Ps 3:3.

(b) Syntax:

The article, relative pronoun, accusative singular 'eth and also the "waw-consecutive" are frequently omitted for the sake of the rhythm. There are several examples of the last in Ps 112:12 ff. The construct state which by rule immediately precedes nouns has often a preposition after it. The jussive sometimes takes the place of the indicative, and the plural of nouns occurs for the singular.

(3) Rhythm.

Rhythm (from rhuthmos) in literary composition denotes that recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables in a regular order which we have in poetry and rhetorical prose. Man is a rhythmic animal; he breathes rhythmically, and his blood circulates--outward and inward--rhythmically. It may be due to these reflex rhythms that the more men are swayed by feeling and the less by reflection and reasoning, the greater is the tendency to do things rhythmically. Man walks and dances and sings and poetizes by the repetition of what corresponds to metrical feet: action is followed by reaction. We meet with a kind of rhythm in elevated and passionate prose, like that of John Ruskin and other writers. Preachers when mastered by their theme unconsciously express themselves in what may be called rhythmic sentences. Though, however, rhythm may be present in prose, it is only in poetry as in music that it recurs at intervals more or less the same. In iambic poetry we get a repetition of a short and long syllable, as in the following lines:

"With ravished ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes the gods,

Affects the nods."

--Dryden.

(4) Parallelism.

What is so called is a case of logical rhythm as distinguished from rhythm that is merely verbal. But as this forms so important a feature of Bible poetry, it must be somewhat fully discussed. What since Bishop Lowth's day has been called parallelism may be described as the recurring of symetrically constructed sentences, the several members of which usually correspond to one another. Lowth (died 1787), in his epochmaking work on Hebrew poetry (De Sacra poesi Hebraeorum prelectiones, English translation by G. Gregory), deals with what he (following Jebb) calls Parallelismus membrorum (chapter X). And this was the first serious attempt to expound the subject, though Rabbi Asariah (Middle Ages), Ibn Ezra (died 1167 AD), D. Kimchi (died 1232) and A. de Rossi (1514-1578) called attention to it. Christian Schoettgen (died 1751) (see Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae) anticipated much of what Lowth has written as to the nature, function and value of parallelism. The first to use the word itself in the technical sense was Jebb (Sacred Lit., 1820). For the same thing Ewald used the expression Sinnrhythmus, i.e. sense rhythm, a not unsuitable designation.

(a) Kinds of Parallelism:

Lowth distinguished three principal species of parallelism, which he called synonymous, antithetic and synthetic.

(i) The Synonymous:

In this the same thing is repeated in different words, e.g. Ps 36:5:

`Yahweh, (i.) Thy lovingkindness (reaches) to the heavens,

(ii.) Thy faithfulness (reaches) to the clouds.'

Omitting "Yahweh," which belongs alike to both members, it will be seen that the rest of the two half-lines corresponds word for word: "thy lovingkindness" corresponding to "thy faithfulness," and "to the heavens" answering to "to the clouds" (compare Ps 15:1; 24:1-3; 25:5; 1 Sam 18:7; Isa 6:4; 13:7).

(ii) Antithetic Parallelism:

In which the second member of a line (or verse) gives the obverse side of the same thought, e.g. Prov 10:1:

`A wise son gladdens his father,

But a foolish son grieves his mother'

(See Prov 11:3; Ps 37:9; compare Prov 10:1 ff; Ps 20:8; 30:6; Isa 54:7 ff). Sometimes there are more than two corresponding elements in the two members of the verse, as in Prov 29:27; compare 10:5; 16:9; 27:2.

(iii) Synthetic Parallelism:

Called also constructive and epithetic. In this the second member adds something fresh to the first, or else explains it, e.g. Ps 19:8 f:

`The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart:

The commandments of Yahweh are pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever:

The judgments of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;

Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb'

(See Prov 1:7; compare 3:5,7; Ps 1:3; 15:4). In addition to the three principal species of parallelism noticed above, other forms have been traced and described.

(iv) Introverted Parallelism:

(Jebb, Sacred Lit., 53): in which the hemistichs of the parallel members are chiastically arranged, as in the scheme ab ba. Thus, Prov 23:15 f:

(a) `My son, if thy heart be wise

(b) My heart shall be glad, even mine:

(b) Yea, my reins shall rejoice

(a) When thy lips speak right things'

(Compare Prov 10:4,12; 13:24; 21:17; Ps 51:3).

(v) Palilogical Parallelism:

In which one or more words of the first member are repeated as an echo, or as the canon in music, in the second. Thus, Nah 1:2:

`Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges:

Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath;

Yahweh takes vengeance upon His adversaries,

And He reserves wrath for his enemies'

(Compare Jdg 5:3,6 f,11 f,15 f,23,17; Ps 72:2,12,17; 121; 124; 126; Isa 2:7; 24:5; Hos 6:4).

(vi) Climactic or Comprehensive Parallelism:

In this the second line completes the first. Thus, Ps 29:1:

"Give unto Yahweh, O ye mighty ones,

Give unto Yahweh glory and strength"

(see Ex 15:6; Ps 29:8).

(vii) Rhythmical Parallelism:

(De Wette, Franz Delitzsch): thus, Ps 138:4:

"All the kings of the earth shall give thee thanks ....

For they have heard the words of thy mouth."

See Prov 15:3; compare 16:7,10; 17:13,15; 19:20; 21:23,25.

Perfect parallelism is that in which the number of words in each line is equal. When unequal, the parallelism is called imperfect. Ewald (see Die poetischen Bucher des alten Bundes, I, 57-92; Die Dichter des alten Bundes, I, 91 ff, 2d edition of the former) aimed at giving a complete list of the relations which can be expressed by parallelism, and he thought he had succeeded. But in fact every kind of relation which can be indicated in words may be expressed in two or more lines more or less parallel. On the alleged parallelism of strophes see below.

(b) Parallelism as an Aid to Exegesis and Textual Criticism:

If in Lowth's words parallelism implies that "in two lines or members of the same period things for the most part shall answer to things, and words to words," we should expect obscure or unknown words to derive some light from words corresponding to them in parallel members or clauses. In not a few cases we are enabled by comparison of words to restore with considerable confidence an original reading now lost. The formula is in a general way as follows: ab: cx. We know what a, b and c mean, but are wholly in the dark as to the sense of x. The problem is to find out what x means. We have an illustration in Jdg 5:28, which may be thus literally translated:

"Through the window she looked,

And Sisera's mother x through the x."

Here we have two unknown, each, however, corresponding to known terms. The Hebrew verb accompanying "Sisera's mother" is watteyabbebh, English Versions of the Bible "and .... cried." But no such verb (yabhabh) is known, for the Talmud, as usually, follows the traditional interpretation. We want a verb with a meaning similar to "looked." If we read wattabbeT, we have a form which could easily be corrupted into the word in the Massoretic Text, which gives a suitable sense and moreover has the support of the Targums of Onqelos and Jonathan, and even of the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus and Lucian). What about the other Hebrew word untranslated above ('eshnabh)? This occurs in but one other passage (Prov 7:6), where it stands as in the present passage in parallelism with challon, "window" (probably Prov 7:6 is dependent). We get no help from etymology or in this case from the VSS, but parallelism had suggested to our translators the meaning "lattice," a kind of Eastern window, and something of the kind must be meant. The verb shanabh, "to be cool," may possibly suggest the rendering "window," i.e. a hole in the wall to secure coolness in the house. Glass windows did not exist in Palestine, and are rare even now. There are innumerable other examples in the Old Testament of the use of parallelism in elucidating words which occur but once, or which are otherwise difficult to understand, and frequently a textual emendation is suggested which is otherwise supported.

(c) Prevalence and Value of Parallelism:

Two statements anent parallelism in the Old Testament may be safely made: (i) That it is not a characteristic of all Old Testament poetry. Lowth who had so much to do with its discovery gave it naturally an exaggerated place in his scheme of Hebrew poetry, but it is lacking in the largest part of the poetry of the Old Testament, and it is frequently met with in elevated and rhetorical prose. (ii) That it pervades other poetry than that of the Old Testament. It occurs in Assyria (see A. Jeremias, Die bab-assyr. Vorstellung vom Leben nach dem Tode), in Egypt (Georg Ebers, Nord u. Sud, I), in Finnish, German and English Indeed, A. Wuttke (Der deutsche Volks-Aberglaube der Gegenwart, 1869, 157) and Eduard Norden (Die antike Kunstprosa, 1898, II, 813) maintain that parallelism is the most primitive form of the poetry of all nations. It must nevertheless be admitted that in the Old Testament parallelism has in proportion a larger place than in any other literature and that the correspondence of the parts of the stichs or verses is closer.

(5) Other Literary Devices.

Old Testament poetry has additional features which it shares with other oriental and with western poetry. Owing to a lack of space these can be hardly more than enumerated.

(a) Alliteration:

E.g. "Round and round the rugged rocks." We have good examples in the Hebrew of Ps 6:8 and 27:17.

(b) Assonance:

E.g. "dreamy seamy" (see for Bible examples the Hebrew of Gen 49:17; Ex 14:14; Dt 3:2).

(c) Rhyme:

There are so few examples of this in the Hebrew Scriptures that no one can regard it as a feature in Hebrew poetry, though in Arabic and even in post-Biblical Hebrew poetry it plays a great part. We have Biblical instances in the Hebrew text of Gen 4:23; Job 10:8-11; 16:12.

(d) Acrostics:

In some poems of the Old Testament half-verses, verses, or groups of verses begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. We have such alphabetical acrostics in Psalms 9 f; 34; 37; Prov 31:10 ff; Lam 1 through 4; compare Lam 5, where the number of verses agrees with that of the Hebrew alphabet, though the letters of that alphabet do not introduce the verses.

(e) Meter:

The view of the present writer may be stated as follows: That the poetry of the Hebrew is not in the strict sense metrical, though the writers under the influence of strong emotion express themselves rhythmically, producing often the phenomena which came later to be codified under metrical rules. Thinking and reasoning and speaking preceded psychology, logic, and grammar, and similarly poetry preceded prosody. In the Old Testament we are in the region of the fact, not of the law. Poets wrote under strong impulse, usually religious, and without recognizing any objective standard, though all the time they were supplying data for the rules of prosody. Those who think that Old Testament poets had in their minds objective rules of meter have to make innumerable changes in the text. Instead of basing their theory on the original material, they bring their a priori theory and alter the text to suit it. It can be fearlessly said that there is not a single poem in the Old Testament with the same number of syllables, or feet, or accents in the several stichs or hemistichs, unless we introduce violent changes into the Massoretic Text, such as would be resented in classical and other ancient literature. It is important, before coming to any definite conclusion, to take into consideration the fact that the poetry of the Old Testament belongs to periods separated by many centuries, from the Song of Deborah (Jdg 5), the earliest Hebrew poem, down to the last hymns in the Psalter. In the oldest specimens of Hebrew poetry there is a naive simplicity which excludes the idea of conscious article In the latest the poet is much more conscious, and his poetry more artistic. It would be manifestly unfair to propound a theory of poetry based on the poetry of Keats and Tennyson and to apply it to the productions of Anglo-Saxon and Old English poetry. Bound up in the one volume called the Bible there is a literature differing widely in age, aim and authorship, and it needs care in educing a conception of Heb poetry that will apply to all the examples in the Old Testament. The later psalm-acrostic, etc., many of them made up of bits of other psalms, seem to have sprung from a more conscious effort at imitation. If, however, there were among the ancient Hebrews, as there was among the ancient Greeks, a code of prosody, it is strange that the Mishna and Gemara' should be wholly silent about it. And if some one system underlies our Hebrew Bible, it is strange that so many systems have been proposed. It should be remembered too that the oldest poetry of every people is nonmetrical.

The following is a brief statement of the views advocated:

(i) Philo and Josephus, under the influence of Greek models and desiring to show that Hebrew was not inferior to pagan literature, taught that Hebrew poetry had meter, but they make no attempt to show what kind of meter this poetry possesses.

(ii) Calmet, Lowth, and Carpzov held that though in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible as originally written and read there must have been metrical rules which the authors were conscious of following, yet, through the corruption of the text and our ignorance of the sounds and accentuation of primitive Hebrew, it is now impossible to ascertain what these metrical rules were.

(iii) In their scheme of Hebrew meter Bickell and Merx reckon syllables as is done in classical poetry, and they adopt the Syriac law of accentuation, placing the tone on the penultimate. These writers make drastic changes in the text in order to bolster up their theories.

(iv) The dominant and by far the least objectionable theory is that advocated by Ley, Briggs, Duhm, Buhl, Grimme, Sievers, Rothstein and most modern scholars, that in Hebrew prosody the accented syllables were alone counted. If this principle is applied to Job, it will be found that most of the Biblical verses are distichs having two stichs, each with three main accents. See, for an illustration, Job 12:16: (immo `oz wethushiyah: lo shoghegh umashgeh': `Strength and effectual working belong to (literally, "are with") him, he that errs and he that causes to err'). Man's rhythmical instincts are quite sufficient to account for this phenomenon without assuming that the poet had in mind an objective standard. Those who adopt this last view and apply it rigidly make numerous textual changes. For an examination of the metrical systems of Hubert Grimme, who takes account of quantity as well as accent, and of Eduard Sievers who, though no Hebrew scholar, came to the conclusion after examining small parts of the Hebrew Bible that Hebrew poetry is normally anapaestic, see W.H. Cobb, Criticism of Systems of Hebrew Metre, 152 ff, 169 ff. Herder, De Wette, Hupfeld, Keil, Nowack, Budde, Doller, and Toy reject all the systems of Hebrew meter hitherto proposed, though Budde has a leaning toward Ley's system.

(f) Budde's Qinah Measure:

Though Budde takes up in general a negative position in regard to Hebrew meter, he pleads strenuously for the existence of one specific meter with which his name is associated. This is what he calls the qinah measure (from qinah, "a lamentation"). In this each stich is said to consist of one hemistich with three beats or stress syllables and another having two such syllables, this being held to be the specific meter of the dirge (see Lam 1:1, etc.). Ley and Briggs call it "pentameter" because it is made up of five (3 plus 2) feet (a foot in Hebrew prosody being equal to an accented syllable and the unaccented syllables combined with it). See Budde's full treatment of the subject inZATW , 60, 152, "Das heb. Klagelied." It must, however, be borne in mind that even Herder (died 1803) describes the use in elegies of what he calls, anticipating Ley and Briggs, the "pentameter" (see Geist der ebraischen Poesie, 1782, I, 32 f, English translation. The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1833, I, 40). But the present writer submits the following criticisms: (i) Budde is inconsistent in rejecting all existing theories of meter and yet in retaining one of his own, which is really but part of the system advocated by Bellermann, Ley and Briggs. (ii) He says, following Herder, that it is the measure adopted by mourning women (Jer 9:16), but we have extremely few examples of the latter, and his statement lacks proof. (iii) There are dirges in the Old Testament not expressed in the qinah measure. David's lament over Saul and Jonathan is more hexametric and tetrametric than pentametric, unless we proceed to make a new text (2 Sam 1:19 ff). (iv) The qinah measure is employed by Hebrew poets where theme is joyous or indifferent; see Ps 119, which is a didactic poem.

(6) Units of Hebrew Poetry.

In western poetry the ultimate unit is usually the syllable, the foot (consisting of at least two syllables) coming next. Then we have the verse-line crowned by the stanza, and finally the poem.

According to theory of Hebrew poetry adopted by the present writer, the following are the units, beginning with the simplest:

(a) The Meter:

This embraces the accented (tone) syllable together with the unaccented syllable preceding or succeeding it. This may be called a "rhythmic foot."

(b) The Stich or Verse:

In Job and less regularly in Psalms and Canticles and in other parts of the Old Testament (Nu 23:19-24) the stich or verse consists commonly of three toned syllables and therefore three meters (see above for sense of "meter"). It is important' to distinguish between this poetical sense of "verse" and the ordinary meaning--the subdivision of a Bible chapter. The stich in this sense appears in a separate line in some old manuscripts.

(c) Combinations of Stichs (Verses):

In Hebrew poetry a stich hardly ever stands alone. We have practically always a distich (couplet, Job 18:5), a tristich (triplet, Nu 6:24-26), a tetrastich (Gen 24:23), or the pentastich.

(d) Strophe:

Kosters (Stud. Krit., 1831, 40-114, "Die Strophen," etc.) maintained that all poems in the Hebrew Scriptures are naturally divisible into strophes (stanzas) of similar, if not equal, length. Thus Ps 119 is arranged in strophes named after the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each one containing eight Scripture verses, or sixteen metrical verses or stichs, most of the stichs having three meters or rhythmical feet. But though several Biblical poems are composed in strophes, many are not.

(e) Song:

This (shirah) is made up of a series of verses and in some cases of strophes.

(f) Poem:

We have examples of this (shir) in the books of Job and Canticles which consist of a combination of the song.

(7) Classification of Stichs or Verses.

Stichs may be arranged as follows, according to the number of meters (or feet) which they contain: (a) the trimeter or tripod with three meters or feet; Bickell holds that in Job this measure is alone used; (b) the tetrameter or tetrapod, a stich with four meters or feet; (c) the pentameter or pentapod, which has five meters or feet: this is Budde's qinah measure (see III , 1, (4)); (d) the hexameter or hexapod: this consists of six meters or feet, and is often hard to distinguish from two separate trimeters (or tripods).

2. Internal or Material Characteristics:

Our first and most original authority on the internal characteristics of Hebrew poetry is that great German theologian and man of letters, J.G. Herder, the pastor and friend of Goethe and Schiller at Weimar. In his Vom Geist der ebraischen Poesie, 1782 (The Spirit of Poetry, translated by James Marsh, U.S.A., 1833), he discusses at length and with great freshness those internal aspects of the poetry of the Old Testament (love of Nature, folklore, etc.) which impressed him as a literary man. Reference may be made also to George Gilfillian's Bards of the Bible, 1851 (popular), and Isaac Taylor's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. It is a strange but striking and significant coincidence that not one of these writers professed much if any knowledge of the Hebrew language. They studied the poetry of the Old Testament mainly at least in translations, and were not therefore diverted from the literary and logical aspects of what is written by the minutiae of Hebrew grammar and textual criticism, though only a Hebrew scholar is able to enter into full possession of the rich treasures of Hebrew poetry.

(1) Themes of Hebrew Poetry.

It is commonly said that the poetry of the ancient Hebrews is wholly religious. But this statement is not strictly correct. (a) The Old Testament does not contain all the poetry composed or even written by the Hebrews in Bible times, but only such as the priests at the various sanctuaries preserved. We do not know of a literary caste among the Hebrews who concerned themselves with the preservation of the literature as such. (b) Within the Bible Canon itself there are numerous poems or snatches of poems reflecting the everyday life of the people. We have love songs (Canticles), a wedding song (Ps 45), a harvest song (Ps 65), parts of ditties sung upon discovering a new well (Nu 21:17 f), upon drinking wine, and there are references to war songs (Nu 21:14; Josh 10:13; 2 Sam 1:18).

(2) Species of Hebrew Poetry.

Biblical poetry may be subsumed under the following heads: (a) folklore, (b) prophetical, (c) speculative, (d) lyrical.

(a) Folklore:

"Poetry," said J. G. Hamann (died 1788), "is the mother tongue of the human race." In both folk-music and folk-poetry, each the oldest of its class, the inspiration is immediate and spontaneous. We have examples of folk-songs in Gen 11:1-9; 19:24 f.

(b) Prophetic Poetry:

This poetry is the expression of the inspiration under which the seer wrote. One may compare the oracular utterances of diviners which are invariably poetical in form as well as in matter. But one has to bear in mind that the heathen diviner claimed to have his messages from jinns or other spirits, and the means he employed were as a rule omens of various kinds. The Old Testament prophet professed to speak as he was immediately inspired by God (see DIVINATION ,VIII ). Duhm thinks that the genuine prophecies of Jeremiah are wholly poetical, the prose parts being interpolations. But the prophet is not merely or primarily a poet, though it cannot be doubted that a very large proportion of the prophecies of the Old Testament are poetical in form and substance.

(c) Philosophical Poetry:

This expression is intended to include such poetry as is found in the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha (see WISDOM LITERATURE ). The so-called didactic poetry, that of the proverbs or parables (mashal), also comes in here.

(d) Lyrical Poetry:

This includes the hymns of the Psalter, the love songs of Canticles and the many other lyrics found in the historical and prophetical writings. In these lyrics all the emotions of the human soul are expressed.

Does the Old Testament contain specimens of epic and dramatic poetry? The answer must depend on which definition of both is adopted.

(a) Epic Poetry:

The present writer would define an epic poem as a novel with its plot and development charged, however, with the passion and set out in the rhythmic form of poetry. There is no part of the Old Testament which meets the requirements of this definition, certainly not the Creation, Fall and Deluge stories, which De Wette (Beitrage, 228 ff, Einleitung, 147) and R.G. Moulton (Literary Study of the Bible, chapter ix) point to as true epics, and which Ewald (Dichter des alten Bundes, I, 87 ff) held rightly to have in them the stuff of epics, though not the form.

(b) Dramatic Poetry:

Defining dramatic poetry as that which can be acted on a stage, one may with confidence say that there is no example of this in the Old Testament. Even the literary drama must have the general characteristics of that which is actable. Franz Delitzsch and other writers have pointed to Job and Canticles as dramatic poems, but the definition adopted above excludes both.

IV. Poetical Writings of the Old Testament.

1. The Poetical Books in the Narrow Sense:

According to the Massoretes or editors of our present Hebrew Bible, there are but three poetical books in the Old Testament, Job, Proverbs, and Psalms, known in Jewish circles by the mnemonic abbreviation 'emeth, the three consonants forming the initial letters of the Hebrew names of the above books. These three books have been supplied by the Massoretes with a special system of accents known as the poetical accents, and involving a method of intoning in the synagogue different from that followed when the prose books are read. But these accentual marks cannot be traced farther back than the 7th or 8th century of our era.

2. Customary Division of the Poetical Books:

It is customary to divide the poetical books of the Old Testament into two classes, each containing three books: (1) those containing lyrical poetry (shir , or shirah), i.e. Psalms, Canticles, Lamentations; (2) those containing for the most part didactic poetry (mashal), i.e. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.

3. Poetry in Non-poetical Books:

There is a large amount of poetry in the Old Testament outside the books usually classed as poetical: (a) poetry in the prophetical books (see above,III , 2); (b) poetry in the historical books including the Pentateuch (see Michael Heilprin, The Historical Poetry of the Hebrews, 2 volumes, 1879-80). We have examples in Gen 4:23 f; 49; Ex 15; Nu 21:14 f,27-30 (JE); Nu 23 f (Balaam's songs); Dt 32 f (song and blessing of Moses); Josh 10:12-14 (JE); Jdg 5 (Deborah's Song); 9:8-15; 1 Sam 2:1-10; 2 Sam 1; 3:33 f; 2 Sam 23 (= Ps 18), etc.

LITERATURE.

The most important books and articles on the subject have been mentioned during the course of the foregoing article. There is a full list of works dealing with Hebrew meter in W.H. Cobb, Criticism o.f Systems of Hebrew Metre, 19 ff. The first edition of Ewald's still valuable "Essay on Hebrew Poetry" prefixed to his commentary on the Psalms was published in English in the Journal of Sacred Literature (1848), 74 ff, 295 ff. In 1909 J.W. Rothstein issued a suggestive treatise on Hebrew rhythm (Grundzuge des heb. Rhythmus .... nebst lyrischen Texten mit kritischem Kommentar, 8vo plus vi plus 398), reviewed by the present writer in Review of Theology and Philosophy (Edinburgh), October, 1911. Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews by E.G. King (Cambridge University Press) contains a good, brief, popular statement of the subject, though it makes no pretense to originality. In The Poets of the Old Testament, 1912, Professor A.R. Gordon gives an excellent popular account of the poetry and poetical literature of the Old Testament.

T. Witton Davies


POETRY, NEW TESTAMENT

No one questions the presence of poetry of a high order in the Old Testament. The Study of the Old Testament as the literature of the ancient Hebrews has been critically made, and the attention of even the ordinary reader of the Scriptures called to the beauty and wealth of its poetic passages. The message of the New Testament is so vitally spiritual and concerned with religion that but little attention has been paid to it as literature. Naturally it would be strange if the poetic inspiration which runs like a tide through the prophetic and post-exilic periods of the Old Testament should altogether cease under the clearer spiritual dispensation of the New Testament. The fact is that it does not cease, but that under every fundamental rule for poetic utterance, save that of rhyme, the New Testament is seen to be rich in imaginative vision, in religion touched by emotion, and in poetic expression. The Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle of James, all afford examples of lofty poetic utterance, while the message of Jesus is saturated with words which readily lend themselves to song. In fact it is thought by some that Jesus was no less careful of the form than of the content of His message, and that all the finer types of Hebrew poetry found in the Old Testament can be matched from His sayings, even when tested by the same rules.

In the Gospels that of Luke gives us our best examples of poetry. "No sooner have we passed through the vestibule of his Gospel than we find ourselves within a circle of harmonies" (Burton, in the Expositor's Bible). From the poetic utterances of Mary, Elisabeth, Zacharias, Simeon, and the Angels, the church gains her Magnificat, Beatitude, Benedictus, Nunc Dimittis and Glorias.

The utterances of John the Baptist are filled with a rugged desert vision and an expression which reveals a form of poesy in no wise to be mistaken for prose.

Paul presents many of his ideas in harmonious and beautiful forms. He knew the secular poets of his day, and has immortalized Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus (Acts 17:28). He also quotes from Epimenides and the Athenian dramatist Menander (1 Cor 15:33). Paul knew the poetry of the Hebrews, and enriches his own message with many quotations from it. He was acquainted with the Christian hymnology of his own times, as is seen in Eph 5:14 and 1 Tim 3:16. He offers also original flashes of poetic inspiration and utterance, a good example of which is found in Rom 8:31-37.

Who could doubt the poetic imagery of James? He might almost be called the poet of social justice and of patient waiting under affliction for the will of God to come to men.

When one comes to the words of Jesus he discovers that in a very true sense His speech answers to the requirements for Hebrew poetry. Examples of synonymous, antithetic, synthetic and causal parallelism are the rule rather than the exception in the utterances of Jesus. For the synonymous form see Mt 10:24; for the antithetic see Lk 6:41; for the synthetic and causal forms see Lk 9:23 and Mt 6:7. Not alone are these forms of Hebrew poetry found in the words of Jesus, but also the more involved and sustained poetic utterances (Lk 7:31-32).

No one can question the deep emotional quality, the vivid imagination and spiritual idealism of Jesus. That the form of His speech is adequately set to poetic inspiration and conforms to the laws for Hebrew poetry has not been so freely acknowledged. Independently of theory advanced in Did Jesus Write His Own Gospel? (William Pitt MacVey), every student of the literature of the New Testament must be grateful for the chapter on "The Poems of Jesus."

Spirituality and poetry have a kinship, and the interpretation of any message is aided by the adequate knowledge of its form. When the New Testament has thus been carefully studied as literature, it will be seen, not only that Jesus was a poet, but that the entire New Testament, if not as rich as the Old Testament in poetic passages, is sufficiently poetic to receive treatment as such in religious encyclopedias.

See also FAITHFUL SAYINGS ;POETRY ,HEBREW .

C. E. Schenk


POINTS

points: The word occurs in Eccl 5:16, "In all points (`ummah) as he came, so shall he go"--a man leaves the world in all regards as helpless as he entered it, no matter what he may have gained or accomplished during his life.

Also in Heb 4:15, "In all points (kata panta, "in all things," as in His human nature (Heb 2:14), so in His human experience (compare Heb 2:17,18)) tempted like as we are, yet without sin." He successfully resisted temptation at all points of His nature, in body, soul, and spirit. See TEMPTATION OF CHRIST . Westcott (in loc.) thinks that the reference is not so much to Christ issuing out of all His trials without the least stain of sin, as to "a limitation of His temptation. Man's temptations come in many cases from previous sin. Such temptations had necessarily no place in Christ. He was tempted as we are, sharing our nature, yet with this exception, that there was no sin in Him to become the spring of trial." Whichever interpretation is adopted there is profound insight into the things of the soul in joining sinlessness with fullness of experience of temptation.

M. O. Evans


POISON

poi'-z'-n (chemah, ro'-sh; thumos, ios): Residents in Palestine must, from the first, have been acquainted with venomous serpents. Six species of these are widely diffused in the land, and at least three of them are fairly common in places. Besides, there are scorpions, centipedes and the large spider, which are as much dreaded by the fellahin as are the serpents, not to speak of the minor but very serious discomforts of mosquitoes, sandflies and ticks, some of which were credited with lethal powers. In The Wisdom of Solomon 16:9 the Revised Version (British and American) we read that "the bites of locusts and flies did slay, and there was not found a healing for their life." There are also many poisonous plants, such as belladonna, henbane, thorn apple, and the opium poppy. None of these is mentioned in the Bible; the only names found there are the hemlock (Conium maculatum) of Hos 10:4, the poisonous gourd (Citrullus colocynthis) of 2 Ki 4:39, and the grapes of gall, probably the fruit of Calotropis procera, the apples of Sodom of Josephus (BJ, IV, viii, 4). Some, however, believe that these are poppyheads. Poisonous waters are referred to at Marah (Ex 15:23) and Jericho (2 Ki 2:19). There are no direct records of any person dying of poison except in 2 Macc 10:13, where the suicide of Ptolemy Macron is related. our Lord's promise in the appendix to Mk 16:18 shows, however, that poisons were known and might be administered by way of ordeal, as was the unknown "water of jealousy" (Nu 5:17). In this connection the story in Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 39) is interesting, that "Justus surnamed Barsabbas, though he drank a deadly poison, suffered no injury, through the grace of the Lord." The passages in which poisonous serpents are mentioned are Dt 32:24, where serpents (the Revised Version (British and American) "crawling things") of the dust, probably Cerastes hasselquistii, the little horned vipers, are mentioned, and in Dt 32:33: "poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps." The asp may be the cobra Naia haje, not uncommon on the borders of the wilderness to the South. Ps 58:4 mentions the poison of serpents. Ps 140:3, "They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips," indicates, what is still a common belief, that the forked tongue of the snake is the poison-bearer. This is referred to in Jas 3:8. That it was the fang and not the tongue which carried the poison was known to Pliny (xi.62). This verse of Ps 140 is given in Paul's composite quotation in Rom 3:13. There may be a reference to the giving of an intoxicant poison in Hab 2:15, where the Revised Version (British and American) reads "that addest thy venom." The prophets speak in several places of God's wrath as a cup of trembling (the Revised Version (British and American) "staggering"), e.g. Isa 51:17,22, probably suggested by the fact that chemah primarily means "fury" and is used in that sense in more than a hundred passages. In Zec 12:2 Jerusalem is to be such a "cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about."

The semamith, "lizard" (the King James Version "spider"), mentioned in Prov 30:28 Septuagint kalabotes) was formerly regarded as poisonous and it is still much disliked by the fellahin, as they believe that it makes mocking gestures mimicking them at their prayers. They are really not poisonous. It is doubtful whether the lizard mentioned by Agur is really this stellion; the description better fits the gecko.

Alexander Macalister


POLE

pol: Nu 21:8,9 the King James Version for nes, Revised Version "standard."


POLICY

pol'-i-si: Literally "method of government," and so "ability to manage affairs." In a bad sense, "cunning," "craft," in Dan 8:25 (sekhel, "understanding"); in a good sense in 1 Macc 8:4 (boule, "counsel"); also in the King James Version 2 Macc 13:18; 14:29,31 (methodos, strategema, strategeo), where the Revised Version has "stratagem." Policies occurs in Judith 11:8 the King James Version for panourgema, lit. "readiness for anything," here in a good sense; Revised Version "subtil devices."


POLISHED

pol'-isht.

See CORNER-STONE , (2).


POLL

pol: The word (on the derivation of which see Skeat, Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 360) has been eliminated as a verb in the American Standard Revised Version. In the King James Version and English Revised Version it represents the Hebrew verbs kacam, literally "to shear" (Ezek 44:20), gazaz, literally, "to pull out," "to uproot," thence "to shear the sheep," figuratively, "to destroy an enemy" (Mic 1:16), galach, in Piel, literally, "to make bald or roundheaded" (2 Sam 14:26) and qatsats, "to cut off" (Jer 9:26; 25:23; 49:32). The Hebrew noun is gulgoleth. As will be seen from the above enumeration, the Hebrew verb differ considerably in etymology, while Revised Version has not tried to distinguish. In Mic 1:16 we have a reference to the oriental custom of cutting or tearing one's hair as a sign of mourning for one's relatives. "Make thee bald, and cut off thy hair (King James Version and English Revised Version "poll thee," Hebrew gazaz) for the children of thy delight: enlarge thy baldness as the eagle (margin "vulture"); for they are gone into captivity from thee." The priests, the sons of Zadok, are instructed to abstain from outward resemblance to heathen patterns of priesthood: "Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only cut off the hair (the King James Version and the English Revised Version, "poll," Hebrew kacam) of their heads" (Ezek 44:20). The Piel form of galach is employed in the description of the annual hair-cutting of Absalom (2 Sam 14:26). Thrice we find the verb "to poll" as the translation of Hebrew qatsats, where the American Standard Revised Version materially improves the translation by adopting the marginal version of the King James Version (Jer 9:26; 25:23; 49:32).

See HAIR .

The noun (gulgoleth, lit. "head") is translated "poll" in the phrase "by the poll," "by their polls" (Nu 1:2,18,20,22; 3:47; 1 Ch 23:3,14). The expression has its origin in the numbering of persons by their heads, in the same way in which we speak of head-tax, etc.

H. L. E. Luering


POLLUTION

po-lu'-shun (ga'al, "to pollute"; alisgema, "contamination"): In Mal 1:7, "Ye offer polluted bread," i.e. not actually unclean, but worthless, common (compare Ezr 2:62), bread here being used metonymically for sacrificial offerings generally (compare Lev 21:6; Mt 6:11). The phrase in Acts 15:20, "the pollutions of idols," is explained in 15:29 by "things sacrificed (the King James Version "meats offered") to idols."


POLLUX

pol'-uks.

See CASTOR AND POLLUX .


POLYGAMY

po-lig'-a-mi:

1. Meaning of the Term

2. Origin of Polygamy

3. The Old Testament and Polygamy

4. Polygamy Unnatural

The Eunuch

5. Weakness of Polygamy

1. Meaning of the Term:

Polygamy has been and is the open blazon by the human race of sex vice. The very term is a misnomer. Since man became moralized he has apprehended that the proper marriage relation between the sexes is monogamy. Whatever may have been the practice, since man could ask himself, What is right? he has known that ap' arches ("from the beginning," Mt 19:4), au fond, at bottom, marriage is the choice of one man and one woman of each other for a life family relation. La Rochefoucauld said: "Hypocrisy is a sort of homage which vice pays to virtue." There is hypocrisy beneath the word polygamy. It is an attempt to cover up by the term "plural marriage" what is not marriage and cannot be marriage. There is no particular need of defining what the condition is, so long as we can look upon it as a violation and negation of the marriage relation. The very use of the term from any language covering a like condition is attempt--

"To steal the livery of the court of heaven

To serve the Devil in."

Polygamy is a general term and might mean a multiplicity of partners in the family relation by one of either sex. But it does not. Polygamy practically means exactly "polygyny" (gune), i.e. it describes a many-wived man. The correlative term "polyandry" describes the condition of a woman who has many men in family relation with herself. They are all husbands to her, as in polygamy all the women are wives to one man. But polyandry in historic times has had so little illustration that it may be dismissed as so exceptional as to be worthy of no further notice here.

Why polygamy has captured the whole position philologically covered by polygyny is readily apparent. The might of the physically strongest has dictated the situation. Man has on the average one-fourth more muscular force than woman. When it comes to wrong in sex relation, man has that advantage, and it has given him the field covered by the word "polygamy." There he is master and woman is the victim.

2. Origin of Polygamy:

It is plainly evident that polygamy is primarily largely the outcome of tribal wars. When men had separated into clans and had taken up different places of abode, collisions would soon occur between them. What would happen in such cases would be what we know did happen in North America soon after its first settlement by Europeans, to wit, the destruction of the Hurons by the Iroquois. The great majority of the men were massacred; the women and children, driven to the abode of the conquerors, disappearing there mainly in concubinage and slavery. What shall be done with this surplus of women? Here again the might of the strongest comes to the front. The chief or the most heroic fighter would assert his right to choice of captives, and thus concubinage or what is the same thing--polygamy--would be set up. Successes in further wars come and add other women to be distributed. Of course to the sheik or king there soon comes the seraglio and the harem. Polygamous practices will come in in other ways. The prisoner of war becomes property and passes from hand to hand by gift or sale. So woman--the weaker party--endures what comes to her as slave, concubine. We have now no longer the "helpmeet" originally destined for man--"bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"--for whom he would "leave his father and his mother" and to whose single self he would "cleave" for life (Gen 2:18,24; Mt 19:5,6). Monogamy, with its unity in labor, thought and feeling, with its immeasurable modifying influences of moral, ideal and spiritual cast, is gone. Woman is reduced to the position of ministrant to man's unmodified sensuality.

3. The Old Testament and Polygamy:

The complications introduced into morals by polygamy are not often considered. But the Bible sets them forth in plainness. The marriage of Abraham and Sarah seems to have been an original love match, and even to have preserved something of that character through life. Still we find Sarah under the influence of polygamous ideas, presenting Abraham with a concubine. Yet afterward, when she herself had a son, she induced Abraham to drive out into the wilderness this concubine and her son. Now Abraham was humane and kind, and it is said "The thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight" (Gen 21:11). But he was in the toils of polygamy, and it brought him pain and retribution. A Divine direction may be hard to bear.

The conditions of Jacob's marriages were such that it is hard to say whether any of his children were of any other than of polygamous origin (Gen 35:22-26). Where the family idea and affection went, in such mixed condition, is evidenced by the unblushing sale, for slavery in Egypt, of one of the brothers by the others (Gen 37:28).

David was a singer of sweet and noble songs and wanted to be a righteous man with his whole heart. Yet, probably in common with all the military leaders and kings of the earth of his day, he had a polygamous career. His retributions ran along an extended line. There was a case of incest and murder among his children (2 Sam 13). The son in whom he had most hope and pride organized treason against his throne, and lost his life in the attempt. David left his kingdom to Solomon, of whom much might be said, but of whom this can be said--evidently originally a man bright, keen-witted, wise, yet in his old age he went to pieces by the wiles of the women with whom he had loaded his harem. Partly by his extravagance in his polygamous life, and partly in attempt to build temples in distant places for the religions represented by the inmates of his harem, he bankrupted his nation. As a consequence his kingdom was divided at his death, and there was never again a united Israel (1 Ki 11:12). Polygamy may be justly charged with these untoward results.

4. Polygamy Unnatural:

It can be demonstrated scientifically, even mathematically, that polygamy is a moral wrong. Statistics show that births are substantially equally divided between the sexes. Excess seems slightly on the side of males. When this fact is considered and also the fact of the wide prevalence of polygamy, it would seem that polygamy (polygyny) is a greater crime against Nature than polyandry. To put out of view for a moment the wrong to woman in denying to her the rights and privileges of monogamous marriage, the interference with the rights of man to such marriage looms up in vast proportion. Every harem is the denial to men of the right to seek among its inmates wives according to the dictates of their own hearts.

The Eunuch.

But we are not done with the crime against man. Given a harem, and he who set it up has made, or there brought, the eunuch. The lord of the harem must be served by emasculated men. A search in history will reveal an amount of this wickedness that is past belief. The eunuch has been everywhere among all nations and peoples and tongues. They have not only been servitors to women in harems, but they have acquired such influence with their masters that they have sometimes even dictated the policy of government. They have been the secret cabinet that has had the last word in public affairs. They have sometimes held public positions and shown therein astonishing ability. Witness Narses, the brilliant general of the emperor Justinian.

See EUNUCH .

5. Weakness of Polygamy:

Gibbon noticed the fact that nations began to decline in power when their policies were dictated and managed by eunuchs. But that is taking a symptom for the disease. There are weaknesses behind that weakness. We have found woman in muscular strength equal to three-fourths of a man. If we claim nothing more for woman than that ratio through the whole scale of her potencies, what would be thought of a nation that should try to reduce that three-fourths of potency as nearly to zero as it could? This is what polygamy has done--reduced woman as nearly to a cipher as it could in all the departments of her being. She has been held to the lowest and most primitive industrial pursuits. She has been deprived of intellectual development. She has been debarred from society, permitted to look at it only through a home lattice, or, if abroad, through a swathod face. The harem of sheik or sultan has fixed the condition of woman in province or nation--set the bounds to her life. The highest office assigned her has been breeder of children, and for one-half of them--the daughters--she could have no possible hope or ambition.

See WOMAN .

Where in such degradation is the "helpmeet" for man in all his problems? This condition is reflected back over man. What possible appeal can there be to him for thought and energy except to repeat the same dull round exhibited in his daily life? Polygamous nations have never been industrial inventors, have contributed little to science. They have usually ruined the fertility of the lands they have occupied. They have been heavily weighted with the lethargy of a system that appeals to nothing but the most primitive instincts and vices of man.

The monogamous have been the forceful nations. Rome conquered the world while she was monogamous, and lost control of it when she dropped to the moral level of the sex corruption of the peoples that she had conquered. The Teuton trundled into and over Europe in ox-carts mounted on solid wood trucks. But his cart carried one wife, and now all polygamy is held under the trained guns of the Tenton.

There may seem to be two exceptions--the establishment of the Mogul empire in India and the subjugation of Western Asia and Eastern Europe by the Turk. That in both cases there was great success in war is granted. They were authorized by their religion to exhibit the frenzy of bloodshed and indulge in lust. Indeed, enjoyment of the latter was a bright hope for the life to come. But when they had possession of a country, and massacres and ravishing were over, what then? For what is mankind indebted to them?

A Lyric.

A lyric has been put in the hand of the present writer by a friend who wrote it at the last date of the title. It is one of the lyrics of the centuries in its synthesis of history and in its insight into the forces physical, moral and immoral at work in the Mogul empire of India. Notice the dates. The text will show what took place between.

THE MOGUL 1525-1857

A war steed coursed out the wind-swept north,

Jarring the crags with hoofs of fire,

Snuffing far battle with nostril wide,

Neighing the joy of fierce desire.

The crisping herbage of arid plains

Had toughened his sinews like bands of steel;

The snow-fed waters of Zarafshan

Had nerved the might of a northern will.

The war steed grazed in the fertile meads,

Drinking the waters of indolent streams:

He rested at eve on bloom-dight beds,

Toyed with by maidens in the goldening gleams.

They charmed his ear with dalliant song:

They closed his eyes in witchery's glee:

They fed him the vineyards' wildering draught--

He slept in the breath of the lotus tree.

White bones lie strewn on the flowering mead,

In flesh-rank grass grown high and dark.

The carrion bird hath flown--hath died--

Riseth the war-horse? Neigheth? Hark!

--JOSIAH TORREY READE, Amherst, 1856.

The above lyric may be taken as the epitaph of any polygamous nation. The last words are significant--"Neigheth? Hark!" Would the old war steed arise? "Hark!" The Sepoy rebellion was on! We "hearkened," but the rebellion went to pieces and an end was put to the Mogul empire. We have listened for half a century and heard no sound. We hear mutterings now, but the end will be as before--even if the "war-horse" riseth and is victorious. He will then again lie down in "flesh-rank grass grown high and dark," and the "carrion bird" will fly from his "white bones." Streams cannot rise higher than their fountains. The causes remaining, the same effects will follow.

See DIVORCE ;FAMILY ;MARRIAGE .

C. Caverno


POMEGRANATE

pom'-gran-at, pom-gran'-at, pum'-gran-at (rimmon (tree and fruit); the Hebrew name is similar to the Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopic; rhoa):

1. A Tree Characteristic of Palestine:

One of the most attractive and most characteristic of the fruit trees of Syria, probably indigenous to Persia, Afghanistan and the neighborhood of the Caucasus, but introduced to Palestine in very ancient times. The spies brought specimens of figs and pomegranates, along with grapes, from the Vale of Eshcol (Nu 13:23). Vines, figs and pomegranates are mentioned (Nu 20:5) as fruits the Israelites missed in the wilderness; the promised land was to be one "of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates" (Dt 8:8), a promise renewed in Hag 2:19. In the lamentation in Joel 1:11,12 we have the pomegranate, the palm tree and the apple tree represented as withered, "for joy is withered away from the sons of men."

2. The Fruit:

The pomegranate tree, Punica granatum (Natural Order, Granateae) occurs usually as a shrub or small tree 10-15 ft. high, and is distinguished by its fresh green, oval leaves, which fall in winter, and its brilliant scarlet blossoms (compare Song 7:12). The beauty of an orchard of pomegranates is referred to in Song 4:13. The fruit which is ripe about September is apple-shaped, yellow-brown with a blush of red, and is surmounted by a crown-like hard calyx; on breaking the hard rind, the white or pinkish, translucent fruits are seen tightly packed together inside. The juicy seeds are sometimes sweet and sometimes somewhat acid, and need sugar for eating. The juice expressed from the seeds is made into a kind of syrup for flavoring drinks, and in ancient days was made into wine: "I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, of the juice (margin "sweet wine") of my pomegranate" (Song 8:2). The beauty of a cut section of pomegranate--or one burst open naturally, when fully ripe--may have given rise to the comparison in Song 4:3; 6:7: "Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate." The rind of the pomegranate contains a very high percentage of tannic acid, and is employed both as a medicine and for tanning, particularly in making genuine morocco leather.

Whether the pomegranate tree in Migron under which Saul is said (1 Sam 14:2) to have abode with his 600 men was really a tree or a place, Rimmon, is doubtful.

See RIMMON .

3. The Pomegranate in Art:

A large number of references to the pomegranate are to the use of the form of the fruit in ornamentation, in which respect it appears among the Hebrews to have something of the position of the lotus bud as a decorative motive in Egypt. It was embroidered in many colors on the skirts of Aaron's garments, together with golden bells (Ex 28:33 f; 39:24-26; compare Ecclesiasticus 45:9). Hiram of Tyre introduced the pomegranate into his brass work ornamentation in the temple: "So he made the pillars; and there were two rows round about upon the one network, to cover the capitals that were upon the top of the pillars" (margin "So the Syriac The Hebrew has `pomegranates'") (1 Ki 7:18). "And the pomegranates were two hundred, in rows round about upon the other capital" (1 Ki 7:20; compare also 7:42; 2 Ki 25:17; 2 Ch 3:16; 4:13).

E. W. G. Masterman


POMMEL

pum'-el (2 Ch 4:12,13): the Revised Version (British and American) reads "bowl" (which see).


POND

See CISTERN ;POOL .


PONDER

pon'-der: Occurs in the King James Version 5 times in the Book of Proverbs and nowhere else in the Old Testament. In each case it means "to consider carefully," "to weigh mentally." In Prov 4:26 and 5:21, the Revised Version (British and American) substitutes "make level." In Prov 5:6, it drops out entirely in the Revised Version (British and American). In Prov 21:2 and 24:12, "weigh" is substituted for "ponder." The one New Testament passage is Lk 2:19; here the Revised Version (British and American) has "pondering" where the King James Version has "and pondered."


PONTIUS

pon'-shi-us, pon'-ti-us.

See PILATE .


PONTUS

pon'-tus (Pontos): Was an important province in the northeastern part of Asia Minor, lying along the south shore of the Black Sea. The name was geographical, not ethnical, in origin, and was first used to designate that part of Cappadocia which bordered on the "Pontus," as the Euxine was often termed. Pontus proper extended from the Halys River on the West to the borders of Colchis on the East, its interior boundaries meeting those of Galatia, Cappadocia and Armenia. The chief rivers besides the Halys were the Iris, Lycus and Thermodon. The configuration of the country included a beautiful but narrow, riparian margin, backed by a noble range of mountains parallel to the coast, while these in turn were broken by the streams that forced their way from the interior plains down to the sea; the valleys, narrower or wider, were fertile and productive, as were the wide plains of the interior such as the Chiliokomon and Phanaroea. The mountain slopes were originally clothed with heavy forests of beech, pine and oak of different species, and when the country was well afforested, the rainfall must have been better adequate than now to the needs of a luxuriant vegetation.

The first points in the earliest history of Pontus emerge from obscurity, much as the mountain peaks of its own noble ranges lift their heads above a fog bank. Thus, we catch glimpses of Assyrian culture at Sinope and Amisus, probably as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. The period of Hittite domination in Asia Minor followed hard after, and there is increasing reason to suppose that the Hittites occupied certain leading city sites in Pontus, constructed the artificial mounds or tumuli that frequently meet the eyes of modern travelers, hewed out the rock tombs, and stamped their character upon the early conditions. The home of the Amazons, those warrior priestesses of the Hittites, was located on the banks of the Thermodon, and the mountains rising behind Terme are still called the "Amazon Range"; and the old legends live still in stories about the superior prowess of the modern women living there.

See ASIA MINOR ,ARCHAEOLOGY OF .

As the Hittite power shrunk in extent and force, by the year 1000 BC bands of hardy Greek adventurers appeared from the West sailing along the Euxine main in quest of lands to exploit and conquer and colonize. Cape Jason, which divides the modern mission fields of Trebizond and Marsovan, preserves the memory of the Argonants and the Golden Fleece. Miletus, "greatest of the Ionic towns," sent out its colonists, swarm after swarm, up through the Bosphorus, and along the southern shore of the Black Sea. They occupied Sinope, the northern-most point of the peninsula with the best harbor and the most commanding situation. Sinope was in Paphlagonia, but politically as well as commercially enjoyed intimate relations with the Pontic cities. Settlers from Sinope, reinforced by others from Athens direct, pressed on and founded Amisus, the modern Samsoun, always an important commercial city. Another colony from Sinope founded Trebizond, near which Xenophon and the Ten Thousand reached the sea again after they had sounded the power of Persia and found it hollow at Cunaxa. Among the cities of the interior, picturesque Amasia in the gorge of the Iris River witnessed the birth of Strabo in the 1st century BC, and to the geographer Strabo, more than to any other man, is due our knowledge of Pontus in its early days. Zille, "built upon the mound of Semiramis," contained the sanctuary of Anaitis, where sacrifices were performed with more pomp than in any other place. Comana, near the modern Tokat, was a city famous for the worship of the great god Ma. Greek culture by degrees took root along the coast; it mixed with, and in turn was modified by, the character of the older native inhabitants.

When the Persians established their supremacy in Asia Minor with the overthrow of Lydia, 546 BC, Pontus was loosely joined to the great empire and was ruled by Persian satraps. Ariobarzanes, Mithradates and Pharnaces are the recurring names in this dynasty of satraps which acquired independence about 363 and maintained it during the Macedonian period. The man that first made Pontus famous in history was Mithradates VI, surnamed Eupator. Mithradates was a typical oriental despot, gifted, unscrupulous, commanding. Born at Sinope 136 BC and king at Amasia at the age of twelve, Mithradates was regarded by the Romans as "the most formidable enemy the Republic ever had to contend with." By conquest or alliance he widely extended his power, his chief ally being his son-in-law Dikran, or Tigranes, of Armenia, and then prepared for the impending struggle with Rome. The republic had acquired Pergamus in 133 BC and assumed control of Western Asia Minor. There were three Roman armies in different parts of the peninsula when war broke out, 88 BC. Mithradates attacked them separately and over-threw them all. He then planned and executed a general massacre of all the Romans in Asia Minor, and 80,000 persons were cut down. Sulla by patient effort restored the fortunes of Rome, and the first war ended in a drawn game; each party had taken the measure of its antagonist, but neither had been able to oust the other. The second war began in the year 74, with Lucullus as the Roman general. Lucullus took Amisus by siege, chased Mithradates to Cabira, modern Niksar, scattered his army and drove the oriental sultan out of his country. Subsequently on his return to Rome, Lucullus carried from Kerasoun the first cherries known to the western world. In the third war the hero on the Roman side was the masterful Pompey, appointed in 66 BC. As a result of this war, Mithradates was completely vanquished. His dominions were finally and permanently incorporated in the territories of the Roman republic. The aged king, breathing out wrath and forming impossible plans against his lifelong enemies, died in exile in the Crimea from poison administered by his own hand.

Most of Pontus was for administrative purposes united by the Romans with the province of Bithynia, though the eastern part subsisted as a separate kingdom under Polemon and his house, 36 BC to 63 AD, and the southwestern portion was incorporated with the province of Galatia.

It was during the Roman period that Christianity entered this province. There were Jews dwelling in Pontus, devout representatives of whom were in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). Paul's associates, Aquila and Priscilla, were originally from here (Acts 18:2). The sojourners of the Dispersion are included in the address of the first Epistle of Peter together with the people of four other provinces in Asia Minor (1 Pet 1:1). Local traditions connect the apostles Andrew and Thaddeus with evangelistic labors in this region. They are said to have followed the great artery of travel leading from Caesarea Mazaca to Sinope. Pliny, governor of Bithynia and Pontus 111-113 AD, found Christians under his authority in great numbers (see BITHYNIA ), and Professor Ramsay argues that Pliny's famous letters, Numbers 96 and 97, written to the emperor Traian on the subject of the treatment of Christians under his government (seePERSECUTION ), were composed in view of conditions in Amisus (Church in Roman Empire, 224, 225).

The Roman empire in the East was gradually merged into the Byzantine, which is still known to the local inhabitants as the empire of "Roum," i.e. Rome. Pontus shared the vicissitudes of this rather unfortunate government until, in 1204, a branch of the Byzantine imperial family established in Pontus a separate small state with its capital at Trebizond. Here the house of the Grand Comneni, sheltered between the sea and the mountain ranges, maintained its tinsel sovereignty to and beyond the fall of Constantinople. In 1461 Trebizond was taken by Mohammed the Conqueror, since which date Pontus, with its conglomerate population of Turks, Armenians, Greeks and fragments of other races, has been a part of the Ottoman empire.

G. E. White


POOL; POND; RESERVOIR

pool, pond, rez'-er-vwar, rez'-er-vwar ((1) berekhah, "pool"; compare Arabic birkat, "pool"; compare berakhah, "blessing," and Arabic barakat, "blessing"; (2) agham, "pool," "marsh," "reeds"; compare Arabic 'ajam, "thicket," "jungle"; (3) miqwah, "reservoir," the King James Version "ditch" (Isa 22:11); (4) miqweh, "pond," the King James Version "pool" (Ex 7:19); miqweh ha-mayim, English Versions of the Bible "gathering together of the waters" (Gen 1:10); miqweh-mayim, "a gathering of water," the King James Version "plenty of water" (Lev 11:36); (5) kolumbethra, "pool," literally, "a place of diving," from kolumbao, "to dive"): Lakes (see LAKE ) are very rare in Syria and Palestine, but the dry climate, which is one reason for the fewness of lakes, impels the inhabitants to make artificial pools or reservoirs to collect the water of the rain or of springs for irrigation and also for drinking. The largest of these are made by damming water courses, in which water flows during the winter or at least after showers of rain. These may be enlarged or deepened by excavation. Good examples of this are found at Diban and Madeba in Moab. Smaller pools of rectangular shape and usually much wider than deep, having no connection with water courses, are built in towns to receive rain from the roofs or from the surface of the ground. These may be for common use like several large ones in Jerusalem, or may belong to particular houses. These are commonly excavated to some depth in the soil or rock, though the walls are likely to rise above the surface. Between these and cylindrical pits or cisterns no sharp line can be drawn.

The water of springs may be collected in large or small pools of masonry, as the pool of Siloam (Jn 9:7). This is commonly done for irrigation when the spring is so small that the water would be lost by absorption or evaporation if it were attempted to convey it continuously to the fields. The pool (Arabic, birkat) receives the trickle of water until it is full. The water is then let out in a large stream and conducted where it is needed. (In this way by patient labor a small trickling spring may support much vegetation.)

'Agham does not seem to be used of artificial pools, but rather of natural or accidental depressions containing water, as pools by the Nile (Ex 7:19; 8:5), or in the wilderness (Ps 107:35; 114:8; Isa 14:23; 35:7; 41:18; 42:15). In Isa 19:10 the rendering of the King James Version, "all that make sluices and ponds for fish," would be an exception to this statement, but the Revised Version (British and American) has "all they that work for hire shall be grieved in soul." Miqweh occurs with 'agham in Ex 7:19 of the ponds and pools by the Nile. Berekhah is used of "the pool of Gibeon" (2 Sam 2:13), "the pool in Hebron" (2 Sam 4:12), "the pool of Samaria" (1 Ki 22:38), "the pools in Heshbon" (Song 7:4), "the pool of Shelah," the King James Version "Shiloah" (Neh 3:15); compare "the waters of Shiloah" (Isa 8:6). We read in Eccl 2:6, "I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared." There is mention of "the upper pool" (2 Ki 18:17; Isa 7:3; 36:2), "the lower pool" (Isa 22:9), "the king's pool" (Neh 2:14). Isa 22:11 has, "Ye made also a reservoir (miqwah) between the two walls for the water of the old pool (berekhah)." Kolumbethra is used of the pool of Bethesda (Jn 5:2,4,7) and of the pool of Siloam (Jn 9:7,11).

See also CISTERN ;NATURAL FEATURES ;BJ , V, iv, 2.

Alfred Ely Day


POOLS OF SOLOMON

poolz.

See CISTERN ;POOL .


POOR

poor ('ebhyon, dal, `ani, rush; ptochos):

I. In the Old Testament.

The poor have great prominence in the Bible; it is said, indeed, that there should be no poor among the Hebrews because Yahweh should so greatly bless them (Dt 15:4 the Revised Version (British and American) and the King James Version margin); but this was only to be realized on certain conditions of obedience (Dt 15:5), and in Dt 15:11 it is said,"The poor will never cease out of the land"; but they were to see to it that none was left in destitution. The very foundation of the Hebrew religion was God's pity on a poor and oppressed people.

1. The Terms Employed:

The words for "poor" are chiefly 'ebhyon, "desirous," "needy," "poor" (Ex 23:6, etc.); dal, "moving," "swaying," hence, weak, poor, lowly (Ex 23:3, etc.); dallah, "poverty," "weakness" (2 Ki 25:12, etc.); rush, perhaps "to shake," "tremble," "to be poor," "impoverished" (1 Sam 18:23, etc.); `ani, also `anaw, "poor," "oppressed," from `anah, "to bend" or "bow down (Ex 22:25, etc.); `aneh, Aramaic (Dan 4:27), chelekhah, "wretchedness" (Ps 10:8,14 the King James Version); yarash, "to make poor" (1 Sam 2:7); machsor, "want" (Prov 21:17); micken, "a needy one" (Eccl 4:13; 9:15 bis,16).

2. Representations:

(1) Generally.--God (Yahweh and 'Elohim) is represented as having a special care for "the poor," which was illustrated in the deliverance of the nation from Egyptian poverty and bondage and was never to be forgotten by them (Dt 24:22); as punishing the oppressors of the poor and rewarding those who were kind to them; God Himself was the Protector and Saviour of the poor (Ex 22:23): "If thou afflict them at all, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot," etc. (Dt 15:9; 24:15; 1 Sam 2:8; Job 31:16; Ps 9:18; 12:5; Prov 19:17; Isa 25:4; Eccl 5:8, "one higher than the high regardeth," etc.).

(2) Liberality to the poor is specially enjoined (Dt 15:7 f), and they were to beware of self-deception and grudging in this (Dt 15:9,10).

(3) Special provisions were made on behalf of the poor: (a) Every third year a tithe was to be given "unto the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless and to the widow" that Yahweh might bless them (Dt 14:28,29; 26:12 f); (b) the poor were to have the free use of all that grew spontaneously in field or vineyard during the Sabbatic year (Ex 23:10 f; Lev 25:5,6); (c) each year the gleanings of the fields and vineyards should belong to the poor, the corners of fields were to be left for them, and if a sheaf was forgotten it should remain (Lev 19:9,10; 23:22; Dt 24:19); (d) fruit and ripe grain in a field might be eaten by any hungry person, but none should be carried away (Dt 23:24,25); (e) in the Feast of Weeks the poor were to participate (Dt 16:9-12); (f) every seventh year there should be a "release" of debts (Dt 15:1 f) ; in the seventh year of servitude the Hebrew bond-servant should go free (Ex 21:2), or in the Jubilee, if that came first, on which occasion--the fiftieth year--property that had been sold returned to its owner or his family (Lev 25:8-17); (g) they were to lend readily to the poor, and no interest or increase was to be taken from their brethren (Ex 22:25; Lev 25:35-37; Dt 15:7 f); in Lev 25:39, no poor Hebrew was to be made a bond-servant, and, if a hired servant, he was not to be ruled with rigor (25:43); his hire was to be given him daily (Lev 19:13; Dt 24:15); no widow's raiment was to be taken in pledge (Dt 24:17), nor the handmill, nor the upper millstone so essential for daily life (Dt 24:6), a man's garment should be returned to him before sundown, and no house should be entered to seize or fetch any pledge (Dt 24:10-13); breach of these laws should be sin and their observance righteousness (Dt 24:13,15, etc.; see ALMS ,ALMSGIVING ); (h) justice was to be done to the poor (Ex 23:6; Dt 27:19, "Cursed be he that wresteth the justice due to the sojourner, fatherless, and widow"); (i) offerings were graduated according to means (Lev 5:7; 12:8).

(4) Definite penalties were not always attached to those laws, and the prophets and psalmists have many complaints of the unjust treatment and oppression of the poor, contrary to the will of God, and frequent exhortations to justice and a due regard for them (Ps 10:2,9; 12:5; 14:6, etc.; Isa 3:14,15; Jer 2:34; Ezek 16:49, "the iniquity of .... Sodom"; 18:12,17; 22:29; Am 2:7; 4:1; Hab 3:14; compare Job 20:19; 24:9,14, etc.; Prov 14:31).

(5) The duty of caring for the poor is frequently and strongly set forth and divine promises attached to its fulfillment (Ps 41:1; 72:12 ff; Prov 17:5; 22:9; 28:3,17; Isa 58:7; Jer 22:16; Ezek 18:17; Dan 4:27; Zec 7:10, etc.; compare Job 29:12,16; 30:25; 31:19; Ps 112:9).

(6) The day of the divine manifestation, the times of the Messiah, should bring deliverance and rejoicing to the poor (Ps 72:12-15; Isa 11:4, "With righteousness shall he judge the poor," etc.; 14:30; 29:19; 61:1 the Revised Version margin).

(7) The equality of rich and poor before God and the superiority of the righteous poor to the ungodly rich, etc., are maintained (Prov 19:1,22; 22:1,2; Eccl 4:13).

(8) Ways in which men can willfully make themselves poor are mentioned (Prov 6:11; 10:4; 12:24; 13:4,18; 14:23; 20:13; 21:5,17; 23:21; 28:19).

3. The Godly Poor:

The chief words given above all mean poor, literally, but `ani (rendered also "afflicted") may also denote Israel as a nation in its afflictions and low estate, e.g. Ps 68:10; Isa 41:17; 49:13; 51:21; 54:11; in Zeph 3:12, it is "the ideal Israel of the future." Dr. Driver remarks (art. "Poor," HDB) that such passages show that `ani (as also its frequent parallel 'ebhyon, and, though somewhat less distinctly, dal) came gradually "to denote the godly poor, the suffering righteous, the persons who, whether `bowed down' or `needy' or `reduced,' were the godly servants of Yahweh." The humble poor became in fact distinguished as the line in which faithfulness to Yahweh was maintained and spiritual

religion developed. The less frequent word `anaw, often translated "meek," "humble," is regarded (see Driver in the place cited.) as having from the first a moral and religious significance. It is used of Moses (Nu 12:3) and occurs in Ps 10:12,17; 22:26; 25:9, etc.; Prov 3:34; 16:19; Isa 29:19; 32:7; 61:1; Am 2:7; Zeph 2:3.

II. In the New Testament.

In the New Testament ptochos, "trembling," "poor," "beggar," is almost exclusively the word translated "poor." It does not occur very frequently, but we see the same regard for the poor maintained as we have in the Old Testament; besides, the new principle of love and the example of Him who "though he was rich, yet for your sakes .... became poor" (ptocheuo, 2 Cor 8:9) necessarily carry in them this regard even more fully than in the Old Testament. Jesus announced His mission (Lk 4:18) by quoting Isa 61:1, "to preach good tidings (the King James Version "the gospel") to the poor" (or meek or humble); He gave as a proof of His Messiahship the fact that "the poor have the gospel (or good news of the Kingdom) preached to them" (Mt 11:5; Lk 7:22); according to Lk 6:20, He pronounced a beatitude on the pious "poor" because the kingdom of God was theirs; in Mt 5:3 it is "the poor in spirit" (the humble); we have the injunction to "give to the poor" (Mt 19:21; Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22) who are "always with you" (Mt 26:11; Mk 14:7; Jn 12:8), which does not mean that there must always be "the poor," but that, in contrast with Himself who was soon to leave them, the poor should remain and kindness could be shown to them at any time, which was His own practice (Jn 13:29); we are enjoined to call not the rich or well-to-do to our entertainments, but the poor (Lk 14:13; compare 14:21); Zaccheus cited in his favor the fact that he gave `half of his goods to the poor' (Lk 19:8); special notice was taken by Jesus of the poor widow's contribution (Lk 21:3). The first church showed its regard for the poor in the distribution of goods "according as any man had need" (Acts 2:45; 4:32; 6:1); when the council at Jerusalem freed the Gentiles from the yoke of Judaism, they made it a condition, Paul says, "that we should remember the poor; which very thing I was also zealous to do" (Gal 2:10); contributions were accordingly made "for the poor among the saints that are at Jerus" (Rom 15:26), and it was in conveying such contributions that Paul got into the circumstances that led to his arrest. God's ability and will to provide for those who give to the poor is quoted from Ps 112:9 (2 Cor 9:9); James specially rebukes certain Christians of his day for their partiality for the rich and their dishonor of the poor (Jas 2:5-9), and John asks how, in the man who "hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him," the love of God can dwell (1 Jn 3:17,18).

Ptochos is translated "beggar" (Lk 16:20,22) and "beggarly" (Gal 4:9); penes, "one who works for his daily bread," "a poor man," is the word in 2 Cor 9:9; the poor widow of Mk 12:42 is described in Lk 21:2 as penichros, "very poor."

III. In the Apocrypha.

In the Apocrypha the poor are often mentioned; God's regard for them (Ecclesiasticus 21:5 (ptochos); 35:12,13); their oppression and wrongs (The Wisdom of Solomon 2:10 (penes); Ecclesiasticus 13:3,19,23 (ptochos); Baruch 6:28); the duty of care for and of giving to the poor (Tobit 4:7 (ptochos); Ecclesiasticus 29:8 (tapeinos); 29:9 (penes); 34:20-22); of justice and kindness to such (Ecclesiasticus 4:1,5,8; 7:32; 10:23 (ptochos)); "poor" in the sense of pitiable occurs in 2 Macc 4:47 (talaiporos), the Revised Version (British and American) "hapless."

IV. The Revised Version (British and American) Changes.

For "the poor of this world" (Jas 2:5) the Revised Version (British and American) has "them that are poor as to the world"; for "The poor .... shall trust in it" (Isa 14:32), "In her shall the afflicted .... take refuge"; instead of "Whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor" (Eccl 4:14), "Yea, even in his kingdom he was born poor"; "poor" for "humble" (Ps 9:12; 10:12, margin "meek"), for "lowly" (Prov 16:19, margin "meek").

W. L. Walker


POPLAR

pop'-lar (libhneh, "whiteness"; sturakinos, "storax" (Gen 30:37), leuke, "poplar" (Hos 4:13) (libhneh is so similar to the Arabic libna, the storax, that the latter certainly has the first claim to be the true translation)): "Jacob took him rods of fresh poplar," margin "storax tree" (Gen 30:37). "They .... burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because the shadow thereof is good" (Hos 4:13). In the latter reference the conjunction of the shrub, storax, with two great trees like the oak and terebinth--even though they all grow in the mountains--is strange. The storax cannot give a shade comparable with these trees. Had we other evidence of the storax being a sacred tree among the Hebrews, it might explain the difficulty.

The storax, Styrax officinalis (Natural Order Styraceae), is a very common shrub in Palestine which occasionally attains the height of 20 feet. The under surfaces of its oval leaves are covered with whitish hairs, and it has many beautiful pure-white flowers like orange blossoms--hence, its name "whiteness."

The poplar, the traditional translation in Hos 4:13, flourishes in many parts of Palestine. The white poplar, Populus alba, Arabic Haur, is common everywhere; Euphratica occurs especially in the Jordan valley; the black poplar, P. nigra, and the Lombardy poplar, P. pyramidalis--probably an importation--are both plentiful in the plain of Coele-Syria, around Damascus and along the river banks of Syria.

E. W. G. Masterman


PORATHA

po-ra'-tha, por'-a-tha (pora-tha'): One of the sons of Haman (Est 9:8). The etymology is uncertain; perhaps from the Persian purdata, "given by fate."


PORCH

porch: Chiefly in the Old Testament 'alam, used of the temples of Solomon and Ezekiel (see TEMPLE ); once micderon, a "vestibule," in Jdg 3:23. In the New Testament, the word occurs in connection with the high priest's palace (Mt 26:71, pulon; Mk 14:68, proaulion), and as the rendering of stoa, a "portico," in Jn 5:2 (pool of Bethesda); and Jn 10:23; Acts 3:11; 5:12.

See PORCH ,PORTICO ,SOLOMON'S .


PORCH, PORTICO, SOLOMON'S

por'-ti-ko, (he stoa he kaloumene Solomontos): This important element of Herod's temple, preserving in its name a traditional connection with Solomon, is thrice referred to in the New Testament, namely, in Jn 10:23; Acts 3:11, "the porch that is called Solomon's"; and Acts 5:12. In these passages the Greek word stoa is translated "porch" but in the Revised Version margin of Acts 3:11 more correctly "portico". In architecture a "porch" is strictly an exterior structure forming a covered approach to the entrance of a building; a "portico" is an ambulatory, consisting of a roof supported by columns placed at regular intervals--a roofed colonnade. The portico bearing Solomon's name was that running along the eastern wall in the Court of the Gentiles of Herod's temple. It had double columns, while that on the South known as the Royal Portico had four rows (compare Josephus, Ant,XV , xi, 3;BJ , V, v, and seeTEMPLE ,HEROD'S ). The portico was the scene of Christ's teaching at the Feast of the Dedication (Jn 10:23), and was flocked to by the multitude after the healing of the lame man (Acts 3:11). There the apostles preached and wrought other miracles (Acts 5:12).

W. Shaw Caldecott


PORCIUS FESTUS

por'-shus.

See FESTUS .


PORCUPINE

por'-ku-pin (qippodh (Isa 14:23; 34:11; Zeph 2:14) the King James Version "bittern," the Revised Version (British and American) "porcupine"; Septuagint echinos "hedgehog"; qippoz (Isa 34:15), the King James Version "great owl," the English Revised Version "arrow-snake," the American Standard Revised Version "dart-snake"; Septuagint echinos; compare Arabic qunfud, or qunfudh, "hedgehog" or "porcupine." qippodh, is referred to the root qaphadh, "to draw one's self together" or "to roll oneself up," while qipoz is referred to the root qaphaz, and the root qaphats, "to draw together in order to spring." The resemblance between all these words, including the Arabic is obvious, and it is to be noted that the Septuagint has echinos in all the places cited):

The Greek echinos is the hedgehog. The Arabic kunfudh is used in some localities for the hedgehog and in others for the porcupine, which is also called nis. The hedgehog is also called kibbabat-ush-shauk, or "ball of spines." These two animals are both found in Syria and Palestine, and, while both have spines, they are very different animals, though often confounded. The hedgehog, Erinaceus europeus, is one of the Insectivora. It eats not only insects but also snakes and other small animals, as well as fruits and roots. It is about 10 inches long, covered with short spines, and rolls itself into a ball when attacked. It inhabits the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The porcupine, Hystrix cristata, is a rodent, about 26 inches long, having long spines. It is herbivorous. It backs rapidly at its foes, thrusting its sharp spines into their flesh, not shooting its spines, as is often stated. It inhabits most of Europe and Asia. It is very different from the Canadian porcupine, Erethizon dorsatus, as well as from the tree porcupines of Mexico and Central and South America.

As to the rendering "bittern" for qippodh (Isa 14:23; 34:15; Zeph 2:14), while the etymology favors "hedgehog," the context favors a bird, especially in Isa 34:11, though it cannot be said that in any of the passages the context makes "hedgehog" an impossible rendering.

In Isa 34:15, for qippoz, most modern authorities (compare the Revised Version (British and American)) have some sort of serpent, referring to the Arabic root qafaz, "to spring." (See notes above on qaphaz and qaphats.) In this passage also the context is not unfavorable to a bird (compare the King James Version "great owl").

See BITTERN ;OWL ;SERPENT .

Alfred Ely Day


PORPHYRY

por'-fi-ri (in Est 1:6, the Revised Version margin has "porphyry" (the King James Version margin "porphyre") for bahaT, English Versions of the Bible "red (marble)"; the Septuagint has smaragdtes, which was a green stone): Porphyry is an igneous rock containing distinct crystals of feldspar in a feldspathic matrix. It may be purple or of other colors, as green. "Porphyry" is from porphureos, "purple."


PORPOISE

por'-pus (the Revised Version margin has "porpoise-skin" for `or tachash, the Revised Version (British and American) "sealskin," the King James Version "badgers' skins" (Ex 25:5; 26:14; 35:7,23; 36:19; 39:34; Nu 4:6,8,10,11,12,14,25; Ezek 16:10)): The word denotes leather used in the furnishings of the tabernacle (for shoes in Ezek 16:10), and was probably the skin of the dugong, Halichore dugong, Arabic tukhas, which is found in the Red Sea.

See BADGER .


PORT; PORTER

port, por'-ter: "Port" in the sense of "gate" (of a city or building) is obsolete in modern English, and even in the King James Version is found only in Neh 2:13. "Porter," as "gate-keeper," however, is still in some use, but "porter" now (but never in the English Versions of the Bible) generally means a burden-carrier. In the Old Testament, except in 2 Sam 18:26; 2 Ki 7:10,11, the porter (sho`er) is a sacred officer of the temple or tabernacle, belonging to a particular family of the Levites, with a share in the sacred dues (Neh 13:5; 12:47). The "porters" are mentioned only in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles has a special interest in them, relating that their duties were settled as far back as the time of David (1 Ch 26:1-19), and that the office extended further to the first settlement of Palestine and even to Moses' day (1 Ch 9:17-26). The office was evidently one of some dignity, and the "chief-porters" (1 Ch 9:26) were important persons. For some inscrutable reason the Revised Version (British and American) renders sho`er by "doorkeeper" in 1 Ch 15 through 26, but not elsewhere.

See DOORKEEPER .

Burton Scott Easton


PORTION; PART

por'-shun: As far as a distinction between these words is possible in English, it lies in the fact that a "portion" is a "part" about whose destiny something is implied (Ps 142:5, etc.). The Hebrew has no two synonyms similarly related, and in consequence the use of the words in English Versions of the Bible is settled either by rather arbitrary considerations (menah, is always "portion" in the Revised Version (British and American), but is "part" in the King James Version, Ex 29:26; Lev 7:33; 8:29) or by the context, irrespective of the Hebrew word used. So "part" and "portion" both represent dabhar, 1 Ki 6:38; Neh 12:47; peh, Zec 13:8; Dt 21:17; chebhel, Josh 17:5 (Revised Version); Ezek 47:13; meros, Lk 11:36; 12:46. And in the vast majority of cases in the Old Testament both words represent simply some derivative of chalaq, normally the noun cheleq.

Burton Scott Easton


POSIDONIUS

pos-i-do'-ni-us (Posidonios, al. Posidonios and Poseidon): One of the three envoys sent by the Syrian general Nicanor to treat with the Jews under Judas during his invasion of Judea, 161 BC (2 Macc 14:19). In 1 Macc 7:27 ff, proposals are sent by Nicanor to Judas, but no envoys are named, and it is there asserted in contradiction to 2 Maccabees that Judas broke off the negotiation because of the treacherous designs of Nicanor.


POSSESS; POSSESSION

po-zes', po-zesh'-un: "Possess" in modern English means normally only "keep in one's possession." But in Elizabethan English it means also "take into possession," and, in fact, the word in the Old Testament always represents Hebrew verbs with the latter as their primary meaning (yarash, in nearly all cases, otherwise nachal, qanah, 'achaz; Aramaic chacan). Consequently, in almost every case "take possession of" could be substituted advantageously for "possess," but the Revised Version (British and American) has not thought the change worth carrying through. In the Apocrypha and New Testament, however, the distinction has been made, the King James Version's "possess" being retained for katecho, in 1 Cor 7:30; 2 Cor 6:10, but the same translation for ktaomai, is changed into "take us for a possession (Judith 8:22), "get" (Lk 18:12), "win" (Lk 21:19), and "possess himself of" (1 Thess 4:4, a very obscure passage). In the noun possession, on the other hand, no such ambiguity exists, and attention need be called only to the following passages. In Dt 11:6, the King James Version has, "all the substance that was in their possession," Hebrew "all that subsisted at their feet," the Revised Version (British and American) "every living thing that followed them." the King James Version uses "possession" loosely in Acts 28:7 for chorion, the Revised Version (British and American) "lands." peripoiesis, from peripoieo, "cause to remain over," "gain," rendered "God's own possession" in Eph 1:14 the Revised Version (British and American) (the King James Version "possession") and 1 Pet 2:9 (the King James Version "peculiar," the King James Version margin "purchased"). "God's own" is a gloss but is implied in the context.

Burton Scott Easton


POSSESSION, DEMONIACAL

de-mo-ni'-a-kal (Mt 4:24; 8:16, etc.).

See DEMON ,DEMONIAC ,DEMONOLOGY .


POST

post (ruts, "to run," ratsim, "runners"): The "runners" formed the royal guard (1 Sam 22:17; 1 Ki 14:27; 2 Ki 11:4,13; see GUARD ). From them were chosen the couriers who carried royal letters and dispatches throughout the kingdom (2 Ch 30:6,10; Est 3:13,15; Jer 51:31). In the Persian service they were mounted on the swiftest horses (Est 8:10,14; compare Xenophon, Cyrop. viii.6,17; Herodotus viii.98). They had the right to command the service of either men or animals in order to expedite their progress (compare Mt 5:41; Mk 15:21, "compel," "impress").

Used in Job 9:25 and the King James Version The Wisdom of Solomon 5:9 (aggelia, the Revised Version (British and American) "message") of the swift passage of time.

See also HOUSE ,II , 1, (4), (7).

M. O. Evans


POT

pot: A term used as the translation of a number of Hebrew and Greek words whose fundamental meaning seems to describe them as intended for the most part to hold liquid or semi-liquid substances, but the pots of Ex 27:3 are intended to hold ashes. (1) cir, the most common word for "pot." It designates most frequently some household utensil, probably a pot or kettle for boiling. So 2 Ki 4:38 ff; Ex 16:3; Jer 1:13 the King James Version; Ezek 11:3,7,11, "caldron"; 24:3,6 the King James Version; Mic 3:3; Zec 14:21, etc. It is also used as the name of some vessel of the sanctuary. So Ex 27:3, where the context shows it was intended to hold ashes; 1 Ki 7:45; 2 Ch 4:16; 2 Ki 25:14. In Ps 60:8; 108:9, it is a pot for washing. (2) parur (Nu 11:8; 1 Sam 2:14), a vessel for boiling; in Jdg 6:19, a vessel for holding broth. (3) dudh, rendered "pot" in Ps 81:6 in the King James Version, "basket" in the Revised Version (British and American); "pot" both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) in Job 41:20. (4) tsintseneth (Ex 16:33), the jar in which the manna was placed. This jar or pot is mentioned in Heb 9:4 under the name stamnos. (5) 'acon (2 Ki 4:2), some kind of jar for holding oil. (6) xestes (Mk 7:4), some kind of household utensil. Mention may also be made of the word rendered "pot" in Lev 6:28 the King James Version, where the Revised Version (British and American) renders more correctly by the general term "vessel"; for the King James Version "pots" (Ps 68:13) the Revised Version (British and American) substitutes "sheepfolds." The root is uncertain. Those who render "sheepfolds" connect with the related root in Gen 49:14; Jdg 5:16. Others render "fireplaces" or "ash heaps." See also "range for pots," in Lev 11:35; "pots," Jer 35:5 the King James Version, correctly "bowls" the Revised Version (British and American); "refining pots" in Prov 17:3; 27:21.

See also FOOD .

Walter R. Betteridge


POTENTATE

po'-ten-tat (dunastes, "mighty one," from dunamai, "to be able"): A person who possesses great power and authority. Only in 1 Tim 6:15, "the blessed and only Potentate" (= God). The same Greek word is used of Zeus in Sophocles (Ant. 608), and of God in Apocrypha (e.g. Sirach 46:5; 2 Macc 15:3,13). It is used of men in Lk 1:52 (the King James Version "the mighty," the Revised Version (British and American) "princes") and Acts 8:27 ("of great authority").


POTI-PHERA

po-tif'-e-ra (poTi phera`; Egyptian Padipara, "the (one) given of the sun-god"; compare Hebrew Nathaniel, "the gift of God," Gen 41:45,50; 46:20): There is no certain evidence from Egypt that this name was in existence until the XXIInd Dynasty, about 950 BC. But names of the Hyksos period, and, indeed, any kind of Hyksos inscriptions, are so scarce on account of the destruction of Hyksos monuments by the Egyptians of later times that the absence of such names is really no evidence on the subject. The fact that this name has not been discovered earlier than 950 BC does not give any warrant for the claim that the narrative is of a late date.

M. G. Kyle


POTIPHAR

pot'-i-far (poTiphar; compare Egyptian Potiphera (Gen 39:1 f)): A high Egyptian official who became the master of Joseph. It is particularly mentioned that he was an Egyptian, i.e. one of the native Egyptian officials at the Hyksos court.


POTSHERD

pot'-shurd (cheres): A piece of earthenware (Job 2:8; Ps 22:15; Isa 45:9). the Revised Version (British and American) renders the word in Prov 26:23, "an earthen vessel," and in Job 41:30 substitutes "sharp potsherds" for "sharp stones." Sirach 22:7 refers to the art of "gluing a potsherd (ostrakon) together."

See HARSITH ;OSTRACA .


POTSHERD GATE

(Jer 19:2).

See HARSITH .


POTTAGE

pot'-aj.

See FOOD ,III .


POTTER'S FIELD

pot'-erz.

See ACELDAMA .


POTTER; POTTERY

pot'-er, pot'-er-i:

1. Historical Development

2. Forms

3. Methods of Production

4. Uses

5. Biblical Terms

6. Archaeological Significance

LITERATURE

1. Historical Development:

(1) Prehistoric.

The making of pottery ranks among the very oldest of the crafts. On the rocky plateaus of Upper Egypt, overlooking the Nile valley, are found the polished red earthenware pots of the prehistoric Egyptians. These are buried in shallow oval graves along with the cramped-up bodies of the dead and their chipped flint weapons and tools. These jars are the oldest examples of the potter's article It is inconceivable that in the country of Babel, Egypt's great rival in civilization, the ceramic arts were less developed at the same period, but the difference in the nature of the country where the first Mesopotamian settlement probably existed makes it unlikely that relics of the prehistoric dwellers of that country will ever be recovered from under the debris of demolished cities and the underlying deposits of clay and silt.

(2) Babylonia.

The oldest examples of Babylonian ceramics date from the historical period, and consist of baked clay record tablets, bricks, drainage pipes, household shrines, as well as vessels for holding liquids, fruits and other stores. (See Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria, I, figures 159, 160,II , figures 163, 168.) Examples of pottery of this early period are shown in the accompanying figures. By the 9th to the 7th century BC the shaping of vessels of clay had become well developed. Fragments of pottery bearing the name of Esarhaddon establish the above dates.

(3) Egypt.

With the close of the neolithic period in Egypt and the beginning of the historical or dynastic period (4500-4000 BC) there was a decline in the pottery article The workmanship and forms both became bad, and not until the IVth Dynasty was there any improvement. In the meantime the process of glazing had been discovered and the art of making beautiful glazed faience became one of the most noted of the ancient Egyptian crafts. The potter's wheel too was probably an invention of this date.

(4) Palestine.

The making of pottery in the land which later became the home of the children of Israel began long before this people possessed the land and even before the Phoenicians of the coast cities had extended their trade inland and brought the earthenware vessels of the Tyrian or Sidonian potters. As in Egypt and Babylonia, the first examples were hand-made without the aid of the wheel.

It is probable that Jewish potters learned their art from the Phoenicians. They at least copied Phoenician and Mycenaean forms. During their wanderings the children of Israel were not likely to make much use of earthenware vessels, any more than the Arabs do today. Skins, gourds, wooden and metal vessels were less easily broken.

To illustrate this, a party, of which the writer was a member, took on a desert trip the earthenware water jars specially made for travel, preferring them to the skin bottles such as the Arab guides carried, for the bottles taint the water. At the end of six days only one out of eight earthenware jars was left. One accident or another had broken all the others.

When the Israelites became settled in their new surroundings they were probably not slow in adopting earthenware vessels, because of their advantages, and their pottery gradually developed distinctive though decadent types known as Jewish.

Toward the close of the Hebrew monarchy the pottery of the land again showed the effect of outside influences. The red and black figured ware of the Greeks was introduced, and still later the less artistic Roman types, and following these by several centuries came the crude glazed vessels of the Arabic or Saracenic period--forms which still persist.

2. Forms:

It is not within the limits of this article to describe in detail the characteristics of the pottery of the various periods. The accompanying illustrations taken from photographs of pottery in the Archaeological Museum of the Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, give a general idea of the forms. Any attempt at classification of Palestinian pottery must be considered more or less provisional, due to the uncertainty of origin of many forms. The classification of pre-Roman pottery here used is that adopted by Bliss and Macalister and based upon Dr. Petrie's studies.

(1) Early Pre-Israelite, Called also "Amorite" (before 1500 BC).

Most of the vessels of this period are handmade and often irregular in shape. A coarse clay, turning red or black when burned, characterizes many specimens. Some are brick red. Specimens with a polished or burnished surface are also found.

(2) Late Pre-Israelite or Phoenician (1500-1000 BC).

From this period on, the pottery is all wheel-turned. The clay is of a finer quality and burned to a brown or red. The ware is thin and light. Water jars with pointed instead of fiat bases appear. Some are decorated with bands or lines of different colored meshes. Cypriote ware with its incised decorations was a like development of the period.

(3) Jewish (1000-300 BC).

Foreign influence is lost. The types which survive degenerate. New forms are introduced. Ordinary coarse clay burning red is used. Cooking pots are most characteristic. Many examples bear Hebrew stamps, the exact meaning of which is uncertain.

(4) Seleucidan.

Foreign influence again appears. Greek and other types are imported and copied. Ribbed surfaces are introduced. The old type of burnishing disappears.

(5) Roman and Saracenic.

Degenerate forms persisting till the present time.

(6) Present-day Pottery.

3. Methods of Production:

The clay as found in the ground is not suitable for use. It is dug out and brought to the vicinity of the pottery (the "potter's field," Mt 27:7) and allowed to weather for weeks. The dry material is then dumped into a cement-lined tank or wooden trough and covered with water. When the lumps have softened they are stirred in the water until all have disintegrated and a thin slimy mud or "slip" has been formed. In coast cities-the potteries are all near the sea, as the sea-water is considered better for the "slipping" process. The slip is drawn off into settling tanks. All stones and lumps remain behind. When the clay has settled, the water is drawn off and the plastic material is worked by treading with the feet (compare Isa 41:25; The Wisdom of Solomon 15:7). The clay used on the Syrian coast is usually a mixture of several earths, which the potters have learned by experience gives the right consistency. The prepared clay is finally packed away and allowed to stand another six months before using, during which time the quality, especially the plasticity, is believed to improve.

Before the invention of the potter's wheel the clay was shaped into vessels by hand. In all of the countries previously mentioned the specimens representing the oldest work are all hand-made. Chopped straw was usually added to the clay of these early specimens. This material is omitted in the wheel-shaped objects. In a Mt. Lebanon village which is noted for its pottery the jars are still made by hand. Throughout the country the clay stoves are shaped by hand out of clay mixed with straw.

The shaping of vessels is now done on wheels, the use of which dates back to earliest history. Probably the Egyptians were the first to use such a machine (IVth Dynasty). In their original form they were stone disks arranged to be turned by hand on a vertical axis. The wheel stood only a few inches above the ground, and the potter sat or squatted down on the ground before it as he shaped his object (see Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt,II , figure 397). The wheels used in Palestine and Syria today probably differ in no respect from those used in the potter's house visited by Jeremiah (Jer 18:1-6). The wheel or, to be more exact, wheels (compare Jer 18:3) are fitted on a square wooden or iron shaft about 3 ft. long. The lower disk is about 20 inches in diameter, and the upper one 8 inches or 12 inches. The lower end of the shaft is pointed and fits into a stone socket or bearing in which it rotates. A second bearing just below the upper disk is so arranged that the shaft inclines slightly away from the potter. The potter leans against a slanting seat, bracing himself with one foot so that he will not slide off, and with the sole of his other foot he kicks the upper face of the lower wheel, thus making the whole machine rotate. The lower wheel is often of stone to give greater momentum. With a marvelous dexterity, which a novice tries in vain to imitate, he gives the pieces of clay any shape he desires.

After the vessel is shaped it is dried and finally fired in a furnace or kiln. The ancient Egyptian kiln was much smaller than the one used today (Wilkhinson, II, 192). Most of the kilns are of the crudest form of the "up-draught" variety, i.e. a large chamber with perforated bottom and a fireplace beneath. The fire passes up through the holes, around the jars packed in tiers in the chamber, and goes out at the top. An interesting survival of an early Greek form is still used in Rachiyet-el-Fakhar in Syria. In this same village the potters also use the lead dross, which comes from the parting of silver, for glazing their jars (compare Prov 26:23).

In firing pottery there are always some jars which come out imperfect. In unpacking the kiln and storing the product others get broken. As a consequence the ground in the vicinity of a pottery is always strewn with potsherds (see also separate article). The ancient potteries can frequently be located by these sherds. The potter's field mentioned in Mt 27:7,10 was probably a field near a pottery strewn with potsherds, thus making it useless for cultivation although useful to the potter as a place in which to weather his clay or to dry his pots before firing.

4. Uses:

Pottery was used in ancient times for storing liquids, such as wine or oil, fruits, grains, etc. The blackened bottoms of pots of the Jewish period show that they were used for cooking. Earthenware dishes were also used for boiling clothes. Every one of these uses still continues. To one living in Bible lands today it seems inconceivable that the Hebrews did not readily adopt, as some writers disclaim, the porous earthen water jars which they found already in use in their new country. Such jars were used for carrying live coals to start a fire, and not only for drawing water, as they are today, but for cooling it (Isa 30:14). The evaporation of the water which oozes through the porous material cools down the contents of a jar, whereas a metal or leathern vessel would leave it tepid or tainted. They were also used for holding shoemaker's glue or wax; for filling up the cracks of a wall before plastering; ground up they are used as sand in mortar.

5. Biblical Terms:

Only a few of the Hebrew words for vessels of different sorts, which in all probability were made of pottery, have been translated by terms which indicate that fact (For cheres, and yatsar, see EARTHEN VESSELS ;OSTRACA .) kadh, is translated "pitcher" in Gen 24:14 ff; Jdg 7:16 ff; Eccl 12:6 (compare keramion, Mk 14:13; Lk 22:10); "jar" in 1 Ki 17:12 (compare hudria, Jn 4:28). The kadh corresponded in size and use to the Arabic jarrah (compare English derivative "jar"). The jarrah is used for drawing and storing water and less frequently for holding other liquids or solids. It is used as an proximate standard of measure. For example, a man estimates the capacity of a cistern in jirar (plural of jarrah). baqbuq, "a bottle," usually leathern, but in Jer 19:1,10 of pottery. This may have been like the Arabic ibriq, which causes a gurgling sound when liquid is turned from it. Baqbuq is rendered "cruse" in 1 Ki 14:3.

keli "vessel," was of wood, metal or earthen-ware in Lev 6:28; Ps 2:9; 31:12; Isa 30:14; Jer 19:11, etc.; compare ostrakinos, 2 Cor 4:7, etc.

pakh, is translated "vial" in 1 Sam 10:1; 2 Ki 9:1; see so-called pilgrim bottles.

koc also qasah "cup" or "bowl," translated "cup" in many passages, like Arabic ka's, which was formerly used for drinking instead of modern cups.

gabhia, translated "bowl" in Jer 35:5.

parur, translated "pots" in Nu 11:8; compare Jdg 6:19; 1 Sam 2:14; compare chutra, which is similar to Arabic.

kidr, commonly used for cooking today.

'etsebh, "pot," Jer 22:28 the American Revised Version margin.

6. Archaeological Significance:

The chemical changes wrought in clay by weathering and firing render it practically indestructible when exposed to the weather and to the action of moisture and the gaseous and solid compounds found in the soil. When the sun-baked brick walls of a Palestinian city crumbled, they buried, often intact, the earthenware vessels of the period. In the course of time, perhaps after decades or centuries, another city was built on the debris of the former. The brick walls required no digging for foundations, and so the substrata were left undisturbed. After long periods of time the destruction, by conquering armies or by neglect, of succeeding cities, produced mounds rising above the surrounding country, sometimes to a height of 60 or 100 ft. A typical example of such a mound is Tell el-Chesy (? Lachish). Dr. Flinders Petrie, as a result of the study of the various strata of this mound, has formed the basis of a classification of Palestinian pottery (see 2, above). With a knowledge of the forms of pottery of each period, the excavator has a guide, though not infallible, to the date of the ruins he finds.

See also CRAFTS ,II , 4.

Figurative: The shaping of clay into pottery typified the molding of the characters of individuals or nations by a master mind (Jer 18:1-6; Isa 29:16; 45:9; 64:8; Rom 9:20 ff); commonplace (Lam 4:2; 2 Tim 2:20); frailness (Ps 2:9; Isa 30:14; Jer 19:11; Dan 2:41; 2 Cor 4:7; Rev 2:27).

LITERATURE.

Publications of PEF, especially Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine; Excavations of Gezer; Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities; Flinders Petrie, Tell el-Ghesy; Bliss and Dickie, Excavations at Jerusalem; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art (i) in Chaldea and Assyria, (ii) Sardinia and Judea, (iii) Cyprus and Phoenicia, (iv) Egypt; King and Hall, Egypt and Western Asia in Light of Modern Discoveries; S. Birch, History of Ancient Pottery; Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians; PEFQ; EB; HDB.

James A. Patch


POUND

pound (maneh; mna, litra; Latin, libra): Pound does not correctly represent the Hebrew maneh, which was more than a pound (see MANEH ). The litra of Jn 12:3 and 19:39 is the Roman pound (libra) of 4,950 grains, which is less than a pound troy, being about 10 1/3 oz. In a monetary sense (its use in Lk 19:13-25) it is the mna, or maneh, which was either of silver or gold, the former, which is probably the one referred to by Luke, being equal to 6,17 British pounds, or about $33 (in 1915); the latter 102,10 British pounds or $510 (in 1915).

See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES .

Figurative: "Pound," like "talent," is used in the New Testament for intellectual gifts and spiritual endowments, as in the passage given above.

H. Porter


POVERTY

pov'-er-ti:

1. Old Testament References:

This word, found but once in the Old Testament (Gen 45:11) outside of the Book of Proverbs in which it occurs 11 times (6:11; 10:15; 11:24 the King James Version; 13:18; 20:13; 23:21; 24:34; 28:19,22 the King James Version; 30:8; 31:7), is a translation of yiwaresh, "to be poor," "to come to poverty" (Gen 45:11). Four different Hebrew words are used in the 11 references in Prov, all bearing the idea of being in need of the necessities of life, although a distinction is made between being in want and being in extreme want. Prov 18:23 well illustrates the general meaning of "poverty" as found in this book: "The poor (rush, "to be impoverished," "destitute") useth entreaties; but the rich answereth roughly."

2. New Testament References

"Poverty" occurs 3 times in the New Testament (2 Cor 8:2,9; Rev 2:9) and is the translation of ptocheia, "to be reduced to a state of beggary or pauperism."

The teaching of the Bible on this subject would, however, be incomplete unless all the references to the "poor" were considered in this connection. Indeed the word for "poverty" has its root in the word for "poor" (ptochos; `ani, or dal).

See POOR .

3. Two Degrees of Poverty:

At least two degrees of poverty are recognized. The Old Testament does not distinguish between them as clearly as does the New Testament. The New Testament, for example, by its use of two words for "poor" sets forth this distinction. In 2 Cor 9:9, "he hath given to the poor," the word used is penes, which does not indicate extreme poverty, but simply a condition of living from hand to mouth, a bare and scant livelihood, such as that made by the widow who cast her two mites into the treasury (Lk 21:2); while in such passages as 2 Cor 6:10: "As poor, yet making many rich," and Lk 6:20: "Blessed are ye poor" (ptochoi, a condition is indicated of abject beggary, pauperism, such as that in which we find Lazarus who was laid at the gate of the rich man's palace, begging even the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man (Lk 16:20,21). It was into this latter condition that Christ voluntarily entered for our sakes: "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor (a mendicant, a beggar), that ye through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). Between 30 and 40 times in the New Testament this latter word is used.

4. Causes of Poverty:

The causes of poverty are failure of harvest and poor crops (Neh 5:1-3); devastation caused by enemies sweeping through the land; the oppression of the people by their own rulers (Isa 5:8); excessive interest, usury (Neh 5:1-5); persecution because of the faith (2 Cor 6; 8). Widows and orphans by reason of their desolate condition were in a special sense subject to poverty. Gluttony brings poverty (Prov 23:21), as does indolence (Prov 28:19).

God commanded His people to care for the poor. The exhortations to relieve poverty are numerous, especially in the Pentateuch. Those in poverty must be treated with kindness (Dt 15:7-11); must be allowed to glean in the vineyards (Lev 19:10); to reap the harvest (Lev 23:22; compare Ruth 2:14-16); must not be neglected (Prov 28:27); nor dealt with harshly (Am 8:4-6); must be treated as equal before God (Prov 22:2); are to share in our hospitality (Lk 14:13,21). Indeed, the truth or falsity of a man's religion is to be tested, in some sense at least, by his relation to those in need (Jas 1:27). The year of Jubilee was intended to be of great benefit to the poor by restoring to them any possessions which they, by reason of their poverty, had been compelled to deed over to their creditors (Lev 25:25-54; Dt 15:12-15). God required certain tithes from His people which were to be devoted to the helping of the poor and needy (Dt 14:28; 26:12,13). So in the New Testament the apostles lay special emphasis upon remembering the poor in the matter of offerings. Paul, especially, inculcated this duty upon the churches which he had rounded (Rom 15:26; Gal 2:10). The attitude of the early Christian church toward its poor is amply illustrated in that first attempt at communism in Acts 2; 4. James, in his Epistle, stingingly reminds his readers of the fact that they had grossly neglected the important matter of caring for the poor (chapter 2). Indeed, so strong is he in his plea for the care of the poor that he claims that the man who willfully neglects the needy thereby proves that the love of God has no place in his heart, and that he has consequently no real faith in God (2:14-26). Christians are exhorted to abound in the grace of hospitality, which, of course, is nothing less than kindness to those in need (Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 6:18; 1 Jn 3:17).

See POOR .

The happiest mother and the noblest and holiest son that ever lived were among the poor. Jesus was born of poor parents, and had not where to lay His head (Mt 8:20), no money with which to pay tribute (Mt 17:27), no home to call His own (Jn 7:53; compare 8:1), and was buried in a borrowed grave (Mt 27:57-61).

Figurative: Of course there is also a spiritual poverty indicated by the use of this word--a poverty in spiritual things: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." By this is meant, Blessed are they who feel that they have no self-righteousness, no worth of their own to present to Christ as a ground of their salvation, who feel their utter bankruptcy of spirit, who say "Nothing in my hand I bring." It is to this state of spirit that Christ refers in Rev 3:17: "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked."

William Evans


POWDERS

pou'-derz ('abheqath rokhel): The "powders of the merchant" in Song 3:6 were probably perfumes, as they are associated with myrrh and frankincense in the account of the festal procession of the litter of Solomon. They may have been some sweet-scented wood in powder, or else some form of incense.


POWER

pou'-er: This word, indicative of might, strength, force, is used in the Old Testament to render very many Hebrew terms, the translation in numerous instances being varied in the Revised Version (British and American) to words like "valor," "rule," "strength," "might," "dominion." The principal words for "power" in the New Testament are dunamis, and exousia. In the latter case the Revised Version (British and American) frequently changes to "authority" (Mk 3:15; 6:7; Eph 1:21, etc.) or "right" (Rom 9:21; 1 Cor 9:6; 2 Thess 3:9, etc.). Power is attributed preeminently to God (1 Ch 29:11; Job 26:14; Ps 66:7; 145:11; Rev 7:12, etc.). On this attribute of power of God, see OMNIPOTENCE . The supreme manifestation of the power, as of the wisdom and love of God, is in redemption (1 Cor 1:18,24). The preaching of the gospel is accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:4; 1 Thess 1:5, etc.). Miracles, as "mighty works," are denoted by the term "powers" (so Mt 11:21,23 the Revised Version margin, etc.). The end of all time's developments is that God takes to Him His great power and reigns (Rev 11:17).

James Orr


POWER OF KEYS

See KEYS ,POWER OF THE .



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