purified on the banks of the Ilissus, by water being poured upon them by the Udranos.

The second kind of ablution was that which required the priests, on pain of death, to wash their hands and their feet before they approached the altar of God (Exod. xxx. 17-21). For this purpose a large basin of water was provided both at the tabernacle and at the temple. To this the Psalmist alludes when he says-I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine altar' (Ps. xxvi. 6). Hence it became the custom in the early Christian church for the ministers, in the view of the congregation, to wash their hands in a basin of water brought by the deacon, at the commencement of the communion (Jamieson, p. 126); and this practice, or something like it, is still retained in the Eastern churches, as well as in the church of Rome, when mass is celebrated. Similar ablutions by the priests before proceeding to perform the more sacred ceremonies were usual among the heathen. The Egyptian priests indeed carried the practice to a burdensome extent, from which the Jewish priests were, perhaps designedly, exonerated; and in their less torrid climate it was, for purposes of real cleanliness, less needful. Reservoirs of water were attached to the Egyptian temples; and Herodotus (ii. 37) informs us that the priests shaved the whole of their bodies every third day, that no insect or other filth might be upon them when they served the gods, and that they washed themselves in cold water twice every day and twice every night: Porphyry says thrice a day, with a nocturnal ablution occasionally. This kind of ablution, as preparatory to a religious act, answers to the simple Wadu of the Moslems, which they are required to go through five times daily before their stated prayers. This makes the ceremonies of ablution much more conspicuous to a traveller in the Moslem East at the present day than they would appear among the ancient Jews, seeing that the law imposed this obligation on the priests only, not on the people. Connected as these Moslem ablutions are with various forms and imitative ceremonies, and recurring so frequently as they do, the avowedly heavy yoke of even the Mosaic law seems light in the comparison.

In the third class of ablutions washing is regarded as a purification from positive defilements. The Mosaical law recognises eleven species of uncleanness of this nature (Lev. xii.xv.), the purification for which ceased at the end of a certain period, provided the unclean person then washed his body and his clothes; but in a few cases, such as leprosy and the defilement contracted by touching a dead body, he remained unclean seven days after the physical cause of pollution had ceased. This was all that the law required: but in later times, when the Jews began to refine upon it, these cases were considered generic instead of specific-as representing classes instead of individual cases of defilement and the causes of pollution requiring purification by water thus came to be greatly increased. This kind of ablution for substantial uncleanness answers to the Moslem ghash, in which the causes of defilement greatly exceed those of the Mosaical law, while they are perhaps equalled in number and minuteness by those which the later Jews devised. The uncleanness

in this class arises chiefly from the natural secretions of human beings and of beasts used for food; and from the ordure of animals not used for food; and, as among the Jews, the defilement may be communicated not only to persons, but to clothes, utensils, and dwellings-in all which cases the purification must be made by water, o by some representative act where water cannot be applied.

Of the last class of ablutions, by which persons declared themselves free from the guilt of a particular action, the most remarkable instance is that which occurs in the expiation for an unknown murder, when the elders of the nearest village washed their hands over the expiatory heifer, beheaded in the valley, saying, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it' (Deut. xxi. 1-9). It has been thought by some that the signal act of Pilate, when he washed his hands in water and declared himself innocent of the blood of Jesus (Matt. xxvii. 24), was a designed adoption of the Jewish custom: but this supposition does not appear necessary, as the custom was also common among the Greeks and Romans.

We have confined this notice to the usages of ablution as a sign of purification sanctioned or demanded by the law itself. Other practices not there indicated appear to have existed at a very early period, or to have grown up in the course of time. From 1 Sam. xvi. 5, compared with Exod. xix. 10-14, we learn that it was usual for those who presented or provided a sacrifice to purify themselves by ablution: and as this was everywhere a general practice, it may be supposed to have existed in patriarchal times, and, being an established and approved custom, not to have required to be mentioned in the law. There is a passage in the apocryphal book of Judith (xii. 7-9) which has been thought to intimate that the Jews performed ablutions before prayer. But we cannot fairly deduce that meaning from it. It would indeed prove too much if so understood, as Judith bathed in the water, which is more than even the Moslems do before their prayers. Moreover, the authority, if clear, would not be conclusive.

But after the rise of the sect of the Pharisees, the practice of ablution was carried to such excess, from the affectation of excessive purity, that it is repeatedly brought under our notice in the New Testament through the severe animadversions of our Saviour on the consummate hypocrisy involved in this fastidious attention to the external types of moral purity, while the heart was left unclean. All the practices there exposed come under the head of purification from uncleanness;-the acts involving which were made so numerous that persons of the stricter sect could scarcely move without contracting some involuntary pollution. For this reason they never entered their houses without ablution, from the strong probability that they had unknowingly contracted some defilement in the streets; and they were especially careful never to eat without washing the hands (Mark vii. 1-5), because they were peculiarly liable to be defiled; and as unclean hands were held to communicate uncleanness to all food (excepting fruit) which they touched, it was deemed that there was no security against cating unclean food but by always

or

washing the hands ceremonially before touching any meat. We say ceremonially, because this article refers only to ceremonial washing. The Israelites, who, like other Orientals, fed with their fingers, washed their hands before meals, for the sake of cleanliness [WASHING]. But these customary washings were distinct from the ceremonial ablutions, as they are now among the Moslems. There were, indeed, distinct names for them. The former was called simply bw, washing, in which water was, poured upon the hands; the latter was called ', plunging, be cause the hands were plunged in water (Lightfoot, on Mark vii. 4). It was this last, namely, the ceremonial ablution, which the Pharisees judged to be so necessary. When therefore some of that sect remarked that our Lord's disciples ate with unwashen hands' (Mark vii. 2), it is not to be understood literally that they did not at all wash their hands, but that they did not plunge them ceremonially according to their own practice. And this was expected from them only as the disciples of a religious teacher; for these refinements were not practised by the class of people from which the disciples were chiefly drawn. Their wonder was, that Jesus had not inculcated this observance on his followers, and not, as some have fancied, that he had enjoined them to neglect what had been their previous practice.

In at least an equal degree the Pharisees muliplied the ceremonial pollutions which required the ablution of inanimate objects- cups and pots, brazen vessels and tables; the rules given in the law (Lev. vi. 28; xi. 32-36; xv. 23) being extended to these multiplied contaminations. Articles of earthenware which were of little value were to be broken; and those of metal and wood were to be scoured and rinsed with water. All these matters are fully described by Buxtorf, Lightfoot, Gill, and other writers of the same class, who present many striking illustrations of the passages of Scripture which refer to them. The Mohammedan usages of ablution, which offer many striking analogies, are fully detailed in the third book of the Mischat ul Masábih, and also in D'Ohsson's Tableau, liv. i. chap. i.

ABNAIM (DEN). This word is the dual of 1, a stone, and in this form only occurs twice, Exod. i. 16, and Jer. xviii. 3. In the latter passage it undeniably means a potter's wheel; but what it denotes in the former, or how to reconcile with the use of the word in the latter text any interpretation which can be assigned to it in the former, is a question which (see Rosenmüller in loc.) has mightily exercised the ingenuity and patience of critics and philologers. The meaning appears to have been doubtful even of old, and the ancient versions are much at variance. The LXX. evades the difficulty by the general expression brav do *рds TO TIKTEL, when they are about to be delivered,' and is followed by the Vulgate, 'et partus tempus advenerit;' but our version is more definite, and has and see them upon the stools.' This goes upon the notion that the word denotes a particular kind of open stool or chair constructed for the purpose of delivering pregnant women. The usages of the East do not, however, acquaint us with any such utensil, the employ "nent of which, indeed, is not in accordance with

the simple manners of ancient times. Others, therefore, suppose the word to denote stone of other bathing troughs, in which it was usual to lave new-born infants. This conjecture is so far probable, that the midwife, if inclined to obey the royal mandate, could then destroy the child without check or observation. Accordingly, this interpretation is preferred by Gesenius (Thesaur. s. v. 1), quoting in illustration Thevenot (Itin. ii. 98), who states that the kings of Persia are so afraid of being deprived of that power which they abuse, and are so apprehensive of being dethroned, that they cause the male children of their female relations to be destroyed in the stone bathing-troughs in which newly-born children are laved.' The question, however, is not as

to the existence of the

custom, but its application to the case in view. Professor Lee treats the preceding opinions with little ceremony, and decides nearly in accordance with the LXX. and other ancient versions, none of which, as he remarks, say anything about wash-pots, stools, or the like. He then gives reasons for understanding the command of Pharaoh thus: Observe, look carefully on the two occasions (i. e. in which either a male or female child is born). If it be a son, then,' &c. may add that this is a subject on which some light may possibly be thrown at a future day by the monuments of Egypt, in which the ancient manners of that country are so minutely portrayed.

We

; father of light אֲבִינֵר or אַבְנֵר) ABNER

Sept. 'Aßevvp), the cousin of Saul (being the son of his uncle Ner), and the commander-in-chief of his army. He does not come much before us until after the death of Saul, B.c. 1056. Then, the experience which he had acquired, and the character for ability and decision which he had established in Israel, enabled him to uphold the falling house of Saul for seven years; and he might probably have done so longer if it had suited his views. It was generally known that David had been divinely nominated to succeed Saul on the throne: when, therefore, that monarch was slain in the battle of Gilboa, David was made king over his own tribe of Judah, and reigned in Hebron. In the other tribes an influence adverse to Judah existed, and was controlled chiefly by the tribe of Ephraim. Abner, with great decision, availed himself of this state of feeling, and turned it to the advantage of the house to which he belonged, of which he was now the most important surviving member. He did not, however, venture to propose himself as king; but took Ishbosheth. a surviving son of Saul, whose known imbecility had excused his absence from the fatal fight in which his father and brothers perished, and made him king over the tribes, and ruled in his name. Ishbosheth reigned in Mahanaim, beyond Jordan, and David in Hebron. A sort of desultory warfare arose between them, in which the advantage appears to have been always on the side of David. The only one of the engagements of which we have a particular account is that which ensued when Joab, David's general, and Abner, met and fought at Gibeon: Abner was beaten and fled for his life; but was pursued by Asahel, the brother of Joab and Abishai, who was swift of foot as a wild roe.' Abner.

dreading a blood-feud with Joab, for whom he seems to have entertained a sincere respect, entreated Asahel to desist from the pursuit: but finding that he was still followed, and that his life was in danger, he at length ran his pursuer through the body by a back thrust with the pointed heel of his spear (2 Sam. ii. 8-32). This put a strife of blood between the two foremost men in all Israel (after David); for the law of honour which had from times before the law prevailed among the Hebrews, and which still prevails in Arabia, rendered it the conventional duty of Joab to avenge the blood of his brother upon the person by whom he had been slain [BLOOD-REVENGE].

As time went on, Abner had occasion to feel more strongly that he was himself not only the chief, but the only remaining prop of the house of Saul: and this conviction, acting upon a proud and arrogant spirit, led him to more presumptuous conduct than even the mildness of the feeble Ishbosheth could suffer to pass without question. He took to his own harem a woman who had been a concubine-wife of Saul. This act, from the ideas connected with the harem of a deceased king [HAREM], was not only a great impropriety, but was open to the suspicion of a political design, which Abner may very possibly have entertained. A mild rebuke from the nominal king, however, enraged him greatly; and he plainly declared that he would henceforth abandon his cause and devote himself to the interests of David. To excuse this desertion to his own mind, he then and on other occasions avowed his knowledge that the son of Jesse had been appointed by the Lord to reign over all Israel: but he appears to have been unconscious that this avowal exposed his previous conduct to more censure than it offered excuse for his present. He, however, kept his word with Ishbosheth. After a tour, during which he explained his present views to the elders of the tribes which still adhered to the house of Saul, he repaired to Hebron with authority to make certain overtures to David on their behalf. He was received with great attention and respect; and David even thought it prudent to promise that he should still have the chief command of the armies, when the desired union of the two kingdoms took place. The political expediency of this engagement is very clear, and to that expediency the interests and claims of Joab were sacrificed. That distinguished personage happened to be absent from Hebron on service at the time, but he returned just as Abner had left the city. He speedily understood what had passed; and his dread of the superior influence which such a man as Abner might establish with David, quickened his remembrance of the vengeance which his brother's blood required. His purpose was promptly formed. Unknown to the king, but apparently in his name, he sent a message after Abner to call him back; and as he returned, Joab met him at the gate, and, leading him aside, as if to confer peaceably and privately with him, suddenly thrust his sword into his body (B.c. 1018). The lamentations of David, the public mourning which he ordered, and the funeral honours which were paid to the remains of Abner, the king himself following the bier as chief mourner, exonerated him in public opinion from naving been privy to this assassination. As for Joab, his privilege as a blood-avenger must to a

great extent have justified his treacherous act in the opinion of the people; and that, together with his influence with the army, screened him from punishment (2 Sam. iii. 6-39).

For the following interesting elucidation of David's lament over Abner, we are indebted to a learned and highly valued contributor.

[David's short but emphatic lament over Ab ner (2 Sam. iii. 33) may be rendered, with stricter adherence to the form of the original, as follows:

'Should Abner die as a villain dies?-
Thy hands-not bound,

Thy feet-not brought into fetters:
As one falls before the sons of wickedness,
fellest thou!"'

As to the syntactical structure of these lines, it is important to observe that the second and third lines are two propositions of state belonging to the last, which describe the condition in which he was when he was slain. This kind of proposition is marked by the subject being placed first, and by the verb generally becoming a participle. On the right knowledge of this structure the beauty and sense of many passages altogether depend; and the common ignorance of it is to be ascribed to the circumstance, that the study of Hebrew so very seldom reaches beyond the vocabulary into the deeper-seated peculiarities of its construction. (See Ewald's Hebr. Gran 556.) As to the sense of the words, J. D. Michaelis (in his Uebersetzung des Alten Test. mit Anmerkungen für Ungelehrte) saw that the point of this indignant, more than sorrowful, lament, lies in the mode in which Abner was slain. Joab professed to kill him for the blood of Asahel his brother,' 2 Sam. iii. 27. But if a man claimed his brother's blood at the hand of his murderer, the latter (even if he fled to the altar for refuge, Exod. xxi. 14) would have been delivered up (bound, hand and foot, it is assumed) to the avenger of blood, who would then possess

a

legal right to slay him. Now Joab not only had no title to claim the right of the Goel, as Asahel was killed under justifying circumstances (2 Sam. ii. 19); but, while pretending to exercise the avenger's right, he took a lawless and private mode of satisfaction, and committed a murder. Hence David charged him, in allusion to this conduct, with shedding the blood of war in peace' (1 Kings ii. 5); and hence he expresses himself in this lament, as if indignant that the noble Abner, instead of being surrendered with the formalities of the law to meet an authorized penalty, was treacherously stabbed like a worthless fellow by the hands of an assassin.-J. N.]

ABNET (DEN). As this word can be traced to no root in the Hebrew language, and as it occurs in the narrative immediately after the departure from Egypt, it is reasonably supposed by Professor Lee to be Egyptian, in opposition however to Hottinger, who refers it to the Persic, and to Gesenius, who finds it in the Sanscrit. It means a band, a bandage; and from the places in which it occurs, it appears to have been made of fine linen variously wrought, and used to bind as a girdle about the body of persons in authority especially the Jewish priests (Exod. xxix. 9 xxviii. 39; xxxix. 29; Lev. viii. 13; Isa. xxii

21). These girdles may be considered as fairly represented by those which we observe on such persons in the Egyptian paintings.

ABOMINATION (in and p; Sept. and New Test.-e. g. Matt. xxiv. 15—ẞdéλvyua, for both). These words describe generally any object of detestation or disgust (Lev. xviii. 22; Deut. vii. 25); and are applied to an impure or detestable action (Ezek. xxii. 11; xxx. 26; Mal. ii. 11, &c.); to any thing causing a ceremonial pollution (Gen. xliii. 32; xlvi. 34; Deut. xiv. 3); but more especially to idols (Lev. xviii. 22; xx. 13; Deut. vii. 26; 1 Kings xi. 5, 7; 2 Kings xxiii. 13); and also to food offered to idols (Zech. ix. 7); and to filth of every kind (Nahum iii. 6). There are two or three of the texts in which the word occurs, to which, on account of their peculiar interest or difficulty, especial attention has been drawn. The first is Gen. xliii. 32: The Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination (navn) unto the Egyptians. This is best explained by the fact that the Egyptians considered themselves cere monially defiled if they ate with any strangers. The primary reason appears to have been that the cow was the most sacred animal among the Egyptians, and the eating of it was abhorrent to them ; whereas it was both eaten and sacrificed by the Jews and most other nations, who on that account were abominable in their eyes. It was for this, as we learn from Herodotus (ii. 41), that no Egyptian man or woman would kiss a Greek on the mouth, or would use the cleaver of a Greek, or his spit, or his dish, or would taste the flesh of even clean beef (that is, of oxen) that had been cut with a Grecian carving-knife. It is true that Sir J. G. Wilkinson (Anc. Egyptians, iii. 358) ascribes this to the repugnance of the fastidiously clean Egyptians to the comparatively foul habits of their Asiatic and other neighbours but it seems scarcely fair to take the facts of the father of history, and ascribe

to them any other than the very satisfactory reason which he assigns. We collect then that it was as foreigners, not pointedly as Hebrews, that it was an abomination for the Egyptians to eat with the brethren of Joseph. The Jews themselves subsequently exemplified the same practice; for in later times they held it unlawful to eat or drink with foreigners in their houses, or even to enter their houses (John xviii. 28; Acts x. 28; xi. 3); for not only were the houses of Gentiles unclean (Mishn. Oholoth. 18, § 7), but they themselves rendered unclean those in whose houses they lodged (Maimon. Mishcab a. Morheb, c. 12, 12); which was carrying the matter a step further than the Egyptians (see also Mitzvoth Tora, pr. 148). We do not however trace these examples before the Captivity.

The second passage is Gen. xlvi. 31. Joseph is telling his brethren how to conduct themselves when introduced to the king of Egypt; and he instructs them that when asked concerning their occupation they should answer: Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers.' This last clause has emphasis, as showing that they were hereditary nomade pastors; and the reason is added: "That ye may dwell in the land of Goshen,--for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.' In the former instance they were 'an abomination' as strangers, with whom the Egyptians could not eat; here they are a further abomination as nomade shepherds, whom it was certain that the Egyptians, for that reason, would locate in the border land of Goshen, and not in the heart of the country. That it was nomade shepherds, or Bedouins, and not simply shepherds, who were abominable to the Egyptians, is evinced by the fact that the Egyptians themselves paid great attention to the rearing of cattle. This is shown by their sculptures and paintings, as well as by the offer of this very king of Egypt to make suca of Jacob's sons as were men of activity 'overseers of his cattle' (xlvii. 6). For this aversion to nomade pastors two reasons are given; and it is not necessary that we should choose between them, for both of them were, it is most likely, concurrently true. One is, that the inhabitants of Lower and Middle Egypt had previously been invaded by, and had remained for many years subject to, a tribe of nomade shepherds [EGYPT], who had only of late been expelled, and a native dynasty restored-the grievous oppression of the Egyptians by these pastoral invaders, and the insult with which their religion had been treated. The other reason, not necessarily superseding the former, but rather strengthening it, is, that the Egyptians, as a settled and civilized people, detested the lawless and predatory habits of the wandering shepherd tribes, which then, as now, bounded the valley of the Nile, and occupied the Arabias. Their constantly aggressive operations upon the frontiers, and upon all the great lines of communication, must, with respect to them, have given intensity to the odium with which all strangers were regarded. If any proof of this were wanting, it is found in the fact (attested by the Rev. R. M. Macbriar and others) that, sunk as Modern Egypt is, there is still such a marked and irreconcilable differ ence of ideas and habits between the inhabitants and the Bedouins, whose camps are often in the near neighbourhood of their towns and villages,