ployed. A series of low stone walls, one above another, across the face of the hill, arrested the soil brought down by the rains, and afforded a series of levels for the operations of the husbandman. This mode of cultivation is usual in Lebanon, and is not unfrequent in Palestine, where the remains of terraces across the hills, in various parts of the country, attest the extent to which it was anciently carried.

In such a climate as that of Palestine, water is the great fertilizing agent. The rains of autumn and winter, and the dews of spring, suffice for the ordinary objects of agriculture; but the ancient inhabitants were able, in some parts, to avert even the aridity which the summer droughts occasioned, and to keep up a garden-like verdure, by means of aqueducts communicating with the brooks and rivers (Ps. i. 3; lxv. 10; Prov. xxi. 1; Isa. xxx. 25; xxxii. 2, 20; Hos. xii. 11). Hence springs, fountains, and rivulets were as much esteemed by husbandmen as by shepherds (Josh. xv. 19; Judg. i. 15). The soil was also cleared of stones, and carefully cultivated; and its fertility was increased by the ashes to which the dry stubble and herbage were occasionally reduced by burning over the surface of the ground (Prov. xxiv. 31; Isa. vii. 23; x. 17; xxxii. 13; xlvii. 14; Matt. iii. 12; Luke iii. 17). The dung, and, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, the blood of animals, were also used to enrich the soil (2 Kings ix. 37; Ps. lxxxiii. 10; Isa. xxv. 10; Jer. ix. 22; Luke xiv. 34, 35).

That the soil might not be exhausted, it was ordered that every seventh year should be a sabbath of rest to the land. There was to be no sowing or reaping, no pruning of vines or olives, no vintage or gathering of fruits; and whatever grew of itself was to be left to the poor, the stranger, and the beast of the field (Lev. xxv. 1-7). But such an observance required more faith than the Israelites were prepared to exercise. It was for a long time utterly neglected (Lev. xxvi. 34, 35; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21), but after the Captivity it was more observed. By this remarkable institution the Hebrews were also trained to habits of economy and foresight, and invited to exercise a large degree of trust in the bountiful providence of their Divine King.

FIELDS.-Syria, including Palestine, was regarded by the ancients as one of the first countries for corn. Wheat was abundant and excellent; and there is still one bearded sort, the ear of which is three times as heavy, and contains twice as many grains, as our common English wheat. Barley was also much cultivated, not only for bread, but because it was the only kind of corn which was given to beasts; for oats and rye do not grow in warm climates. Hay was not in use; and therefore the barley was mixed with chopped straw to form the food of cattle (Gen. xxiv. 25, 32; Judg. xix. 19, &c.). Other objects of field culture were millet, spelt, various kinds of beans and peas, pepperwort, cummin, cucumbers, melons, flax, and, perhaps, cotton. Many other articles might be mentioned as being now cultivated in Palestine; but, as their names do not occur in Scripture, we cannot with certainty know which of them were grown there in the ancient times.

Anciently, as now, in Palestine and the East the arable lands were not divided by hedges into

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fields, as in this country. The ripening products therefore presented an expanse of culture unbroken, although perhaps variegated, in a large view, by the difference of the products grown. The boundaries of lands were therefore marked by stones as landmarks, which, even in patriarchal times, it was deemed a heinous wrong to remove (Job. xxiv. 2); and the law pronounced a curse upon those who, without authority, displaced them (Deut. xix. 14; xxvii. 17). The walls and hedges which are occasionally mentioned in Scripture belonged to orchards, gardens, and vineyards.

8. Modern Syrian Plough.

AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS.-Of late years much light has been thrown upon the agricultural operations and implements of ancient times, by the discovery of various representations on the sculptured monuments and painted tombs of Egypt. As these agree surprisingly with the notices in the Bible, and, indeed, differ little from what is still employed in Syria and Egypt, it is very safe to receive the instruction which they offer.

Ploughing. This has always been a light and superficial operation in the East. At first, the ground was opened with pointed sticks; then, a kind of hoe was employed; and this, in many parts of the world, is still the substitute for a plough. But the plough was known in Egypt and Syria before the Hebrews became cultivators (Job i. 14). In the East, however, it has always been a light and inartificial implement. At first,

it was little more than a stout branch of a tree,

from which projected another limb, shortened and pointed. This, being turned into the ground, made the furrows; while at the farther end of the larger branch was fastened a transverse yoke, to which the oxen were harnessed. Afterwards a handle to guide the plough was added. Thus the plough consisted of-1. the pole ; 2. the point or share; 3. the handle; 4. the yoke. The Syrian plough is, and doubtless was, light enough for a man to carry in his hand. We annex a figure of the ancient Egyptian plough, which

9. Ancient Egyptian Plough.

had the most resemblance to the one now used (as figured in No. 8), and the comparison between them will probably suggest a fair idea of the plough which was in use among the Hebrews.

The plough was drawn by oxen, which were sometimes impelled by a scourge (Isa. x. 26; Nahum iii. 2); but oftener by a long staff, furnished at one end with a flat piece of metal for clearing the plough, and at the other with a spike for goading the oxen. This ox-goad might be easily used as a spear (Judg. iii. 31; I Sam. xiii. 21). Sometimes men followed the plough with hoes to break the clods (Isa. xxviii. 24); but in later times a kind of hammer was employed, which appears to have been then, as now, merely a thick block of wood, pressed down by a weight, or by a man sitting on it, and drawn over the ploughed field.

11. Sowing. Ancient Egyptian.

Ploughing in the Seed.-The Egyptian paintings illustrate the Scriptures by showing that in those soils which needed no previous preparation

by the hoe (for breaking the clods) the sower followed the plough, holding in the left hand a basket of seed, which he scattered with the right hand, while another person filled a fresh basket. We also see that the mode of sowing was what we call 'broad-cast,' in which the seed is thrown loosely over the field (Matt. xiii. 3-8). In Egypt, when the levels were low, and the water had continued long upon the land, they often dispensed with the plough altogether; and probably, like the present inhabitants, broke up the ground with hoes, or simply dragged the moist mud with bushes after the seed had been thrown upon the surface. To this cultivation without ploughing Moses probably alludes (Deut. xi. 10), when he tells the Hebrews that the land to which they were going was not like the land of Egypt, where they sowed their seed and watered it with their foot as a garden of herbs. It does not seem that any instrument resembling our harrow was known; the word rendered to harrow, in Job Xxxix. 10, means literally to break the clods, and is so rendered in Isa. xxviii. 24; Hos. x. 11: and for this purpose the means used have been already indicated. The passage in Job is, however, important. It shows that this breaking of elods was not always by hand, but that some

Ancient Egyptian.

kind of instrument was drawn by an animal over the ploughed field, most probably the rough log which is still in use.

Harvest.-- It has been already indicated that the time of the wheat harvest in Palestine varies, in different situations, from early in May to late in June; and that the barley harvest is about a fortnight earlier than that of wheat. Among the Israelites, as with all other people, the harvest was a season of joy, and as such is more than once alluded to in Scripture (Ps. xxvi. 5; Isa. ix. 3).

Reaping. Different modes of reaping are indicated in Scripture, and illustrated by the Egyp

corn was plucked up by the roots, which continued to be the practice with particular kinds of grain after the sickle was known. In Egypt, at this day, barley and dhurah (maize) are pulled up by the roots. Wheat, as well as barley in general,' says Russell, does not grow half as high as in Britain; and is therefore, like other grain, not reaped with the sickle, but plucked up by the roots with the hand. In other parts of the country, where the corn grows ranker, the sickle is used.' When the sickle was used, the wheat was either cropped off under the ear or cut close to the ground. In the former case, the straw was afterwards plucked up for use; in the latter, the stubble was left and burnt on the ground for manure. As the Egyptians needed not such manure, and were economical of straw, they generally followed the former method; while the Israelites, whose lands derived benefit from the burnt stubble, used the latter; although the practice of cutting off the ears was also

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6, 21, 23; John iv. 36; James v. 4). Refreshments were provided for them, especially drink, of which the gleaners were allowed to partake (Ruth ii. 9). So in the Egyptian harvest-scenes, we perceive a provision of water in skins. hung against trees, or in jars upon stands, with the reapers drinking, and gleaners applying to share the draught. Among the Israelites, gleaning

16. Egyptian Harvest Scene.

was one of the stated provisions for the poor : and for their benefit the corners of the field were left unreaped, and the reapers might not return for a forgotten sheaf. The gleaners were however to obtain in the first place the express permission of the proprietor or his steward (Lev. xix. 9, 10; Deut. xxiv. 19; Ruth ii. 2, 7).

known to them (Job xxiv. 24). Cropping the ears short, the Egyptians did not generally bind them into sheaves, but removed them in baskets. Sometimes, however, they bound them into double sheaves; and such as they plucked up were bound into single long sheaves. The Israelites appear generally to have made up their corn into sheaves (Gen. xxxvii. 7; Lev. xxiii. 10-15; Ruth ii. 7, 15; Job xxiv. 10; Jer. ix. 22; Mich. iv. 12), which were collected into a heap, or removed in

a cart (Amos ii. 13) to the threshing-floor. The carts were probably similar to those which are still employed for the same purpose.

With regard to the sickles, there appear to have been two kinds in use as among the Egyptians. The figures of these Egyptian sickles probably mark the difference between them. One

15. Sickles.

was very much like our common reaping-hook, while the other had more resemblance in its shape to a scythe, and in the Egyptian examples appears to have been toothed. The reapers were the owners and their children, men-servants and women-servants, and day-labourers (Ruth ii. 4,

17. Threshing by Cattle.

Threshing.-The ancient mode of threshing, as described in Scripture and figured on the Egyptian monuments, is still preserved in Palestine. Formerly the sheaves were conveyed from the field to the threshing-floor in carts; of camels and asses. but now they are borne, generally, on the backs The threshing-floor is a level plot of ground, of a circular shape, generally about fifty feet in diameter, prepared for use by beating down the earth till a hard floor is formed (Gen. 1. 10; Judg. vi. 37; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 24). Sometimes several of these floors are contiguous to each other. The sheaves are spread out upon them; and the grain is trodden out by oxen, cows, and young cattle, arranged five abreast, and driven in a circle, or rather in all directions, over the floor. This was the common mode in the Bible times; and Moses forbade that the oxen thus employed should be muzzled to prevent them from tasting the corn (Deut. xxv. 4; Isa. xxviii. 28). Flails, or sticks, were only used in threshing small quantities, or for the lighter kinds of grain (Ruth ii. 17; Isa. xxviii. 27). There were, however, some kinds of threshing-machines, which are still used in Palestine and Egypt. One of them, represented in the annexed figure, is very much used in Palestine. It is composed of two thick planks, fastened together side by side, and bent upwards in front. Sharp fragments of stone are fixed into holes bored in the bottom. This machine is drawn over the corn by oxen, a man or boy sometimes sitting on it to increase the weight. It not only separates the grain, but

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eats the straw and makes it fit for fodder (2| Kings xiii. 7). This is, most probably, the

18. Syrian Corn-Drag.

corn-drag,' which is mentioned in Scripture (Isa. xxviii. 27; xli. 15; Amos i. 3, rendered threshing instrument'), and would seem to have been sometimes furnished with iron points instead of stones. The Bible also notices a machine called a Moreg (2 Sam. xxiv. 22; 1 Chron. xxi. 23; Isa. xli. 15), which is unquestionably the same which bears in Arabic the name of Noreg. This machine is not now often seen in Palestine; but is more used in some parts of Syria, and is common in Egypt. It is a sort of

19. Threshing by the Noreg. frame of wood, in which are inserted three wooden rollers, armed with iron teeth, &c. It bears a sort of seat or chair, in which the driver sits to give the benefit of his weight. It is generally drawn over the corn by two oxen, and separates the grain, and breaks up the straw even more effectually than the drag. In all these processes, the corn is occasionally turned by a fork; and, when sufficiently threshed, is thrown up by the same fork against the wind to separate the grain, which is then gathered up

and winnowed.

The grain afterwards passed through a sieve to separate the bits of earth and other impurities. After this, it underwent a still further purification, by being tossed up with wooden scoops or short-handled shovels, such as we see in Egyptian paintings.

AGRIPPA [HERODIAN FAMILY]. Although of the two Herods, father and son, who also bore the name of Agrippa, the latter is best known by his Roman name, it seems best to include him with the other members of the Herodian dynasty, under the name which he bore among his own people.

A'GUR, the author of the sayings contained in Prov. xxx., which the inscription describes as composed of the precepts delivered by Agur, the son of Jakeh,' to his friends Ithiel and Ucal.' Beyond this everything that has been stated of him, and of the time in which he lived, is pure conjecture.

A'HAB (father's brother), son of Omri, and the sixth king of Israel, who reigned twenty-two years, beginning in B.C. 918 and ending in 897. Ahab was, upon the whole, the weakest of all the Israelitish monarchs; and although there are occasional traits of character which show that he was not without good feelings and dispositions, the history of his reign shows that weakness of character in a king may sometimes be as injurious in its effects as wickedness. Many of the evils of his reign may be ascribed to the close connection which he formed with the Phoenicians. The wife of Ahab was Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, or Ithobaal, king of Tyre. She was a woman of a decided and energetic character, and, as such, soon established that influence over her husband which such women always acquire over weak, and not unfrequently also over strong, men. Ahab, being entirely under the control of Jezebel, sanctioned the introduction, and eventually established the worship of the Phoenician idols, and especially of the sun-god Baal. Hitherto the golden calves in Dan and Bethel had been the only objects of idolatrous worship in Israel, and they were intended as symbols of JEHOVAH. But all reserve and limitation were now abandoned. The king built a temple at Samaria, and erected an image, and consecrated a grove to Baal. A multitude of the priests and prophets of Baal were maintained. Idolatry became the predominant religion; and Jehovah, with the golden calves as symbolical representations of him, were viewed with no more reverence than Baal and his image. At length the judgment of God on Ahab and on his house was pronounced by Elijah, that, during the reign of his son, his whole race should be exterminated. Ahab died of the wounds which he received in a battle with the Syrians, according to a prediction of Micaiah, which the king disbelieved, but yet endeavoured to avert by disguising himself in the action (1 Kings xvi. 29; xxii. 40).

2. AHAB and ZEDEKIAH. The names of two false prophets, who deceived the Israelites at Babylon. For this they were threatened by Jeremiah, who foretold that they should be put to death by the king of Babylon in the presence of those whom they had beguiled; and that in following times it should become a common malediction to say, 'The Lord make thee like Ahab

and Zedekiah, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire' (Jer. xxix. 21, 22).

AHASUERUS, or ACHASHVEROSH, is the name, or rather the title, of four Median and Persian monarchs mentioned in the Bible.

The first Ahasuerus is incidentally mentioned, in Dan. ix. 1, as the father of Darius the Mede. It is generally agreed that the person here referred to is the Astyages of profane history. See the article DARIUS.

The second Ahasuerus occurs in Ezra iv. 6, where it is said that in the beginning of his reign the enemies of the Jews wrote an accusation against them, the result of which is not mentioned. The Persian king here meant seems to be the immediate successor of Cyrus, the frantic tyrant Cambyses, who came to the throne B.C. 529, and died after a reign of seven years and five months.

The third Ahasuerus is the Persian king of the book of Esther. The chief facts recorded of him there, and the dates of their occurrence, which are important in the subsequent inquiry, are these: In the third year of his reign he made a sumptuous banquet for all his nobility, and prolonged the feast for 180 days. Being on one occasion merry with wine, he ordered his queen Vashti to be brought out, to show the people her beauty. On her refusal to violate the decorum of her sex, he not only indignantly divorced her, but published an edict concerning her disobedience, in order to insure to every husband in his dominions the rule in his own house. In the seventh year of his reign he married Esther, a Jewess, who, however, concealed her parentage. In the twelfth year of his reign, his minister Haman, who had received some slights from Mordecai the Jew, offered him 10,000 talents of silver for the privilege of ordering a massacre of the Jews in all parts of the empire on an appointed day. The king refused this immense sum, but acceded to his request; and couriers were despatched to the most distant provinces to enjoin the execution of this decree. Before it was accomplished, however, Mordecai and Esther obtained such an influence over him, that he so far annulled his recent enactment as to despatch other couriers to empower the Jews to defend themselves manfully against their enemies on that day; the result of which was, that they slew 800 of his native subjects in Shushan, and 75,000 of them in the provinces.

Although almost every Medo-Persian king, from Cyaxares I. down to Artaxerxes III. (Ochus), has in his turn found some champion to assert his title to be the Ahasuerus of Esther, some have contended on very plausible grounds that Darius Hystaspes is the monarch referred to. But in the first place, it is impossible to find the name of Darius in Achashverosh; and, in the second, the moral evidence is against him. The mild and just character ascribed to Darius renders it highly improbable that, after favour ing the Jews from the second to the sixth year of his reign, he should become a senseless tool in the hands of Haman, and consent to their extirpation. Lastly, we read of his marrying two daughters and a grand-daughter of Cyrus, and a daughter of Otanes-and these only; would Darius have repudiated one of these for such a trifle, when his peculiar position, as the

AHASUERUS

first king of his race, must have rendered such alliances indispensable?

The whole question, therefore, lies between Xerxes and his successor, Artaxerxes Longimanus. As Artaxerxes allowed Ezra to go to Jerusalem with a colony of exiles in the seventh year of his reign (Ezra vii. 1-7); and as he issued a decree in terms so exceedingly favourable to the religious as well as civil interests of the Jews (Ezra vii. 11-26), how could Haman, five years afterwards, venture to describe the Jews to him as a people whom, on the very account of their law, it was not for the king's profit to suffer? And how could Haman so directly propose their extermination, in the face of a decree so signally in their favour, and so recently issued by the same king? especially as the laws of the Medes and Persians might not be altered! Again, as Artaxerxes (assuming always that he is the Artachshast of Ezra vii. 1, and not Xerxes) was capable of such liberality to the Jews in the seventh year of his reign, let us not forget that, if he is the Ahasuerus of the book of Esther, it was in that same year that he married the Jewess. Now, if-by taking the first and tenth months in the seventh year of the king (the dates of the departure of Ezra, and of the marriage of Esther) to be the first and tenth months of the Hebrew year (as is the usual mode of notation), and not the first and tenth from the period of his accession-we assume that the departure of Ezra took place after his marriage with her, his clemency might be the effect of her influence on his mind. Then we have to explain how he could be induced to consent to the extirpation of the Jews in the twelfth year of his reign, notwithstanding that her influence still continued, for we find it evidently at work in the twelfth year. But if, on the other hand, his indulgence to Ezra was before his marriage, then we have even a greater difficulty to encounter. For then Artaxerxes must have acted from his own unbiassed lenity, and his purposed cruelty in the twelfth year would place him in an incongruous opposition with himself. As we, moreover, find Artaxerxes again propitious to their interests, in the twentieth year of his reign -when he allowed Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem-it is much easier to believe that he was also favourably disposed to them in the twelfth. At any rate, it would be allowing Esther a long time to exercise an influence on his disposition, if his clemency in the twentieth year was due to her, and not to his own inclination. Besides, the fact that neither Ezra nor Nehemiah gives the least hint that the liberal policy of Artaxerxes towards them was owing to the influence of their country woman, is an important negative point in the scale of propabilities. In this case also there is a serious difficulty in the name. Artaxerxes is called Artachshast in Ezra and Nehemiah, we certainly might expect the author of the book of Esther to agree with them in the name of a king whom they all had had such occasion to know. Nor is it perhaps unimportant to add, that Norberg asserts, on the authority of native Persian historians, that the mother of Bahman, i. e. Artaxerxes Longimanus, was a Jewess. This statement would agree excellently with the theory that Xerres was Ahasuerus. Lastly, the joint testimony borne to his

As