Defensive Arms; Shields, Target, Roundel, 99 Ancient Egyptian Carts, 108 Egyptian Curricle, 113 Egyptian War Chariot, . 114 Cherubim; Persian, Egyptian, . 118 Cinnamon (Kinnamomum Cassia), 118 Coney (Hyrax Syriacus), .. 120 Coriander (Coriandrum sativum), 126 Caspian Tern, . 127 Numidian Crane (Grus virgo), 190 137 Crocodile, 218 Bay Tree, 139 Ancient Asiatic Crowns, 219 CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE CONDENSED. IA'RON, the eldest son of Amram and ! Jochebad, of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses. He was born B.C. 1574 (Hales, B.C. 1730), three years before Moses, and one year efore Pharaoh's edict to destroy the male hildren of the Israelites (Exod. vi. 20; vii. 7). His name first occurs in the mysterious interview which Moses had with the Lord, who ppeared to him in the burning bush, while he kept Jethro's flock in Horeb. Among other xcuses by which Moses sought to evade the great commission of delivering Israel, one was hat he lacked that persuasive readiness of peech (literally was not a man of words') which appeared to him essential to such an undertaking. But he was reminded that his brother Aaron possesred in a high degree the endowment which he deemed so needful, and could therefore speak in his name and on his behalf (Exod. iv. 14). During the forty years' absence of Moses in the land of Midian, Aaron had married a woman of the tribe of Judah, Lamed Elisheba (or Elizabeth), who had born to him four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazer, and Ithamar; and Eleazer had, before the return of Moses, become the father of Phinehas (Exod. vi. 23-25). While Moses was absent in the mountain to receive the tables of the law, the people seem to have looked upon Aaron as their head, and growing impatient at the protracted absence of their great leader, they gathered around Aaron, and clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God, that they might worship him as other gods were worshipped. Aaron ventured not to stem the torrent, but weakly complied with their demand; and with the ornaments of gold which they freely offered, cast the figure of a calf or young bull, being doubtless that of the bull-god Apis at Memphis, whose worship extended throughout Egypt. However, to fix the meaning of this image as a symbol of the true God, Aaron was careful to proclaim a feast to Jehovah for the ensuing day. On that day the people met to celebrate the feast, after the fashion of the Egyptian festivals of the calf-idol, with dancing, with shouting, and with sports. Meanwhile Moses had been dismissed from the mountain, provided with the decalogue. written by the finger of God,' on two tablets of stone. These, as soon as he came sufficiently near to observe the proceedings in the camp, he cast from him with such force that they brake in pieces. His re-appearance confounded the multitude, who quailed under his stern rebuke, and quietly submitted to see their new-made idol destroyed. For this sin the population was decimated by sword and plague (Exod. xxxii.). In obedience to an intimation from God, Aaron went into the wilderness to meet his brother, and conduct him back to Egypt. After forty years of separation they met and embraced ach other at the mount of Horeb. When they rrived in Goshen, Aaron introduced his brother During his long absence in the mountain, to the chiefs of Israel, and assisted him in open- Moses had received instructions regarding the ng and enforcing the great commission which ecclesiastical establishment, the tabernacle [TAhad been confided to him (Exod. iv. 27-31). In BERNACLE], and the priesthood [PRIESTS], which he subsequent transactions, from the first inter- he soon afterwards proceeded to execute. Under view with Pharaoh till after the delivered nation the new institution Aaron was to be high-priest, ad passed the Red Sea, Aaron appears to have and his sons and descendants priests; and the been almost always present with Moses, assist- whole tribe to which he belonged, that of Levi, 1g and supporting him; and no separate act of was set apart as the sacerdotal or learned caste is own is recorded. This co-operation was [LEVITES]. Accordingly, after the tabernacle ver afterwards maintained. Aaron and Hur had been completed, and every preparation were present on the hill from which Moses sur-made for the commencement of actual service, veyed the battle which Joshua fought with the Amalekites; and these two long sustained the weary hands upon whose uplifting the fate of the battle was found to depend (Exod. xvii. 10-12). Aaron and his sons were consecrated by Moses, who anointed them with the holy oil and invested them with the sacred garments. The high-priest applied himself assiduously to the duties of his exalted office, and during the B AARONITES period of nearly forty years that it was filled by him, the incidents which bring him historically before us are very few. It is recorded to his honour that he held his peace' when his two eldest sons were, for their great offence, struck dead before the sanctuary (Lev. x. 1-11)| [ABIHU). Aaron would seem to have been liable to some fits of jealousy at the superior influence and authority of his brother; for he at least sanctioned the invidious conduct of his sister Miriam [MIRIAM], who, after the wife of Moses had been brought to the camp by Jethro, became apprehensive for her own position, and cast reflections upon Moses, much calculated to damage his influence, on account of his marriage with a foreigner-always an odious thing among the Hebrews. For this, Miriam was struck with temporary leprosy, which brought the high-priest to a sense of his sinful conduct, and he sought and obtained forgiveness (Num. xii.). Some twenty years after (B.c. 1471), when the camp was in the wilderness of Paran, a formidable conspiracy was organized against the sacerdotal authority exercised by Aaron and his sons, and the civil authority exercised by Moses. This conspiracy was headed by chiefs of influence and station-Korah, of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, of the tribe of Reuben KORAH]. But the Divine appointment was confirmed by the signal destruction of the conspirators: and the next day, when the people assembled tumultuously and murmured loudly at the destruction which had overtaken their leaders and friends, a fierce pestilence broke out among them, and they fell by thousands on the spot. When this was seen, Aaron, at the command of Moses, filled a censer with fire from the altar, and, rushing forward, he stood between the dead and the living,' and the plague was stayed (Num. xvi.). This was in fact another attestation of the Divine appointment; and, for its further confirmation, the chiefs of the several tribes were required to lay up their staves overnight in the tabernacle, together with the rod of Aaron for the tribe of Levi; and in the morning it was found that, while the other rods remained as they were, that of Aaron had budded, blossomed, and yielded the fruit of almonds. The rod was preserved in the tabernacle in evidence of the Divine appointment of the Aaronic family to the priesthood (Num. xvii. 1). Aaron was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, on account of the distrust which he, as well as his brother, manifested when the rock was stricken at Meribah (Num. xx. 8-13). His death indeed occurred very soon after that event. For when the host arrived at Mount Hor, the Divine mandate came, that Aaron, accompanied by his brother Moses and by his son Eleazer, should ascend to the top of that mountain in the view of all the people; and that he should there transfer his pontifical robes to Eleazer, and then die. He was 123 years old when his career thus terminated; and his son and his brother buried him in a cavern of the mountain [HOR, MOUNT]. The Israelites mourned for him thirty days; and on the first day of the month Ab the Jews still hold a fast in commemoration of his death. AARONITES, the descendants of Aaron, who served as priests at the sanctuary (Num. iv. 5, teq.; 1 Chron. xii. 27; xxvii. 17). ABARIM AB (father) is found as the first member of several compound Hebrew proper names-such as Abner, father of light; Abiezer, father of help; &c. By a process which it is not difficult to conceive, the idea of a natural father became modified into that of author, cause, source (as when it is said, has the rain a father?'-Job xxxviii. 28). So that, in course of time, the original meaning was so far modified that the word was sometimes applied to a woman, as in Abigail, father of joy. AB is the Chaldee name of that month which is the fifth of the ecclesiastical and eleventh of the civil year of the Jews. It commenced with the new moon of our August (the reasons for this statement will be given in the article MONTHS), and always had 30 days. This month is preeminent in the Jewish calendar as the period of the most signal national calamities. The 1st is memorable for the death of Aaron (Num. xxxiii. 38). The 9th is the date assigned to the following events:-the declaration that no one then adult, except Joshua and Caleb, should enter into the Promised Land (Num. xiv. 30); the destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (to these first two the fast of the fifth month,' in Zech. vii. 5, viii. 19, is supposed to refer); the destruction of the second Temple by Titus; the devastation of the city Bettar, and the slaughter of Ben Cozibah (Bar Cocâb), and of several thousand Jews there; and the ploughing up of the foundations of the Temple by Turnus Rufus the two last of which happened in the time of Hadrian. The 9th of the month is observed by the Jews as a fast, in commemoration of the destruction of the first Temple: the 15th is the day appointed for the festival of the wood-offering, in which the wood for the burnt-offering was stored up in the court of the Temple: to which Nehemiah alludes in x. 34, and xiii. 31. Lastly, the 18th is a fast in the memory of the western lamp going out in the Temple in the time of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxix. 7, where the extinction of the lamps is mentioned as a part of Ahaz's attempts to suppress the Temple service). For an inquiry into what is meant by the western or evening lamp, see the article CANDLESTICK. ABAD'DON, or APOLLYON (destruction). The former is the Hebrew name, and the latter the Greek, for the angel of death, described (Rev. ix. 11) as the king and chief of the Apocalyptic locusts under the fifth trumpet, and as the angel of the abyss or bottomless pit' [HADES]. AB'AÑA, or, as it is given in the marginal reading, AMANA, the name of one of the rivers which are mentioned by Naaman (2 Kings v. 12), Abana and Pharpar,' as rivers of Damascus.' Amana signifies 'perennial,' and is probably the true name. At the present day it is scarcely possible to discover with certainty the stream to which this name was applied. The most recent conjecture seeks the Abana in the small river Fidgi, which rises in a pleasant valley fifteen or twenty miles to the north-west of Damascus and falls into the Barrada, the main stream by which Damascus is irrigated. AB'ARIM, a mountain, or rather chain of mountains, which form or belong to the mountainous district east of the Dead Sea and the lower Jordan. It presents many distinct masse |