ABSALOM'S TOMB

hemming them in, so that they were destroyed with ease, eventually, under the providence of God, decided the action against Absalom. Twenty thousand of his troops were slain, and the rest fled to their homes. Absalom himself fled on a swift mule; but as he went, the boughs of a terebinth tree caught the long hair in which he gloried, and he was left suspended there. The charge which David had given to the troops to respect the life of Absalom prevented any one from slaying him: but when Joab heard of it, he hastened to the spot, and pierced him through with three darts. His body was then taken down and cast into a pit there in the forest, and a heap of stones was raised upon it.

David's fondness for Absalom was unextinguished by all that had passed; and no sooner did he hear that his son was dead, than he retired to his chamber and gave vent to his paternal anguish in the most bitter wailings-O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! The consequences might have been most dangerous, had not Joab gone up to him, and, after sharply rebuking him for thus discouraging those who had risked their lives in his cause, induced him to go down and cheer the returning warriors by his presence (2 Sam. xiii.xix. 8).

ABSALOM'S TOMB. A remarkable monument bearing this name makes a conspicuous figure in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, outside Jerusalem; and it has been noticed and described by almost all travellers. It is close by the lower bridge over the Kidron, and is a square isolated block hewn out from the rocky ledge so as to leave an area or niche around it. The body of this monument is about 24 feet square.

2. Absalom's Tomb.

The elevation is about 18 or 20 feet to the top of the architrave, and thus far it is wholly cut from the rock. The upper part of the tomb, which is about 20 feet high (the whole has therefore an elevation of about 40 feet), has been

carried up with mason-work of large stones. There is a small excavated chambe in the body of the tomb, into which a hole had been broken through one of the sides several centuries ago.

The old travellers who refer to this tomb, as well as Calmet after them, are satisfied that they find the history of it in 2 Sam. xviii. 18, which states that Absalom, having no son, built a monument to keep his name in remembrance, and that this monument was called Absalom's Hand'-that is, index, memorial, or monument. With our later knowledge, a glance at this and the other monolithic tomb bearing the name of Zecharias, is quite enough to show that they had no connection with the times of the persons whose names have been given to them. But tradition seems never to have become fully settled as to the individuals whose names they should bear, and to the present day the accounts of travellers have been varying and inconsistent.

ABSTINENCE is a refraining from the use of certain articles of food usually eaten; or from all food during a certain time for some particular object. It is distinguished from TEMPERANCE, which is moderation in ordinary food; and from FASTING, which is abstinence from a religious motive. The first example of abstinence which occurs in Scripture is that in which the use of blood is forbidden to Noah (Gen. ix. 4) [BLOOD]. The next is that mentioned in Gen. xxxii. 32: The children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day, because he (the angel) touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.' By the law, abstinence from blood was confirmed, and the use of the flesh of even lawful animals was forbidden, if the manner of their death rendered it impossible that they should be, or uncertain that they were, duly exsanguinated (Exod. xxii. 31; Deut. xiv. 21). A broad rule was also laid down by the law, defining whole classes of animals that might not be eaten (Lev. xi.) [FOOD]. Certain parts of lawful animals, as being sacred to the altar, were also interdicted. These were the large lobe of the liver, the kidneys and the fat upon them, as well as the tail of the 'fat-tailed' sheep (Lev. iii. 9-11). Everything consecrated to idols was also forbidden (Exod. xxxiv. 15). Instances of abstinence from allowed food are not frequent, except in commemorative or afflictive fasts. The forty days' abstinence of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are peculiar cases requiring to be separately considered [FASTING]. The priests were commanded to abstain from wine previous to their actual ministrations (Lev. x. 9), and the same abstinence was enjoined to the Nazarites during the whole period of their separation (Num. vi. 3). A constant abstinence of this kind was, at a later period, voluntarily undertaken by the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv. 14-18). Among the early Christian converts there were some who deemed themselves bound to adhere to the Mosaical limitations regarding food, and they accordingly abstained from flesh sacrificed to idols, as well as from animals which the law accounted unclean; while others contemned this as a weak. ness, and exulted in the liberty wherewith Christ had made his followers free (Rom. xiv.

14

ACCAD

ACCHO

rubbish accumulated by the decay of the superstructure. In the ruin itself, the layers of sundried bricks, of which it is composed, can be traced very distinctly. They are cemented to

ABYSS. The Greek word means literally without bottom, but actually deep, profound. In the New Testament it is used as a noun to describe Hades, or the place of the dead generally (Rom. x. 7); but more especially that part of Hades in which the souls of the wicked were supposed to be confined (Luke viii. 31; Rev. ix. 1, 2, 11; xx. 1, 3; comp. 2 Pet. ii. 4). In the Revelation the authorized version invariably renders it 'bottomless pit,' elsewhere 'deep.'

Most of these uses of the word are explained by reference to some of the cosmological notions which the Hebrews entertained in common with other Eastern nations. It was believed that the abyss, or sea of fathomless waters, encompassed the whole earth. The earth floated on the abyss, of which it covered only a small part. According to the same notion, the earth was founded upon the waters, or, at least, had its foundations in the abyss beneath (Ps. xxiv. 2; cxxxvi. 6). Under these waters, and at the bottom of the abyss, the wicked were represented as groaning, and undergoing the punishment of their sins. There were confined the Rephaim-those old giants who, while living, caused surrounding nations to tremble (Prov. ix. 18; xxx. 16). In those dark regions the sovereigns of Tyre, Babylon, and Egypt are described by the prophets as undergoing the punishment of their cruelty and pride (Jer. xxv. 14; Ezek. xxviii. 10, &c.). This was the deep into which the evil spirits in Luke, viii. 31, besought that they might not be cast, and which was evidently dreaded by them [COSMOGONY; HADES].

AC'CAD, one of the five cities in the land of Shinar,' or Babylonia, which are said to have been built by Nimrod, or rather, to have been the beginning of his kingdom' (Gen. x. 10). It seems that several of the ancient translators found in their Hebrew MSS. Achar instead of Achad, and it is probable that this was really the name of the city. Its situation has been much disputed, but in all probability it may be identified with a remarkable pile of ancient buildings called Akker-kúf, in the district of Siticene, where there was a river named Argades. These buildings are called by the Turks Akkeri-Nimrúd and Akker-i-Babil.

Akker-kúf is about nine miles west of the Tigris, at the spot where that river makes its nearest approach to the Euphrates. The heap of ruins to which the name of Nimrod's HillTel-i-Nimrúd, is more especially appropriated, consists of a mound surmounted by a mass of brickwork, which looks like either a tower or an irregular pyramid, according to the point from which it is viewed. It is about 400 feet in circumference at the bottom, and rises to the height of 125 feet above the sloping elevation ou which it stands. The mound, which seems to form the foundation of the pile, is a mass of

courses varying from 12 to 20 feet in height, and are separated by layers of reeds, as is usual in the more ancient remains of this primitive

3. Akker-kuf.

region. Travellers have been perplexed to make out the use of this remarkable monument, and various strange conjectures have been hazarded. The embankments of canals and reservoirs, and the remnants of brickwork and pottery occupying the place all around, evince that the Tel stood in an important city; and, as its construction announces it to be a Babylonian relic, the greater probability is that it was one of those pyramidal structures erected upon high places, which were consecrated to the heavenly bodies, and served at once as the temples and the observatories of those remote times. Such buildings were common to all Babylonian towns; and those which remain appear to have been constructed more or less on the model of that in the metropolitan city of Babylon.

AC'CHO, a town and haven within the nominal territory of the tribe of Asher, which however never acquired possession of it (Judg. i. 31). The Greek and Roman writers call it ACE, but it was eventually better known as PTOLEMAIS, which name it received from the first Ptolemy, king of Egypt, by whom it was much improved. By this name it is mentioned in the New Testament (Acts xxi. 7). It was also called Colonia Claudii Cæsaris, in consequence of its receiving the privileges of a Roman city from the emperor Claudius. But the names thus imposed or altered by foreigners never took with the natives, and the place i still known in the country by the name of AKKA During the Crusades the place was usually known to Europeans by the name of AcON: afterwards, from the occupation of the Knight: of St. John of Jerusalem, as St. JEAN D'ACRE. or simply ACRE.

This famous city and haven is situated in N. lat. 32° 55', and E. long. 35° 5′, and occupie the north-western point of a commodious bay. called the Bay of Acre, the opposite or southwestern point of which is formed by the pro montory of Mount Carmel. The city lies or

ACCHO

the plain to which it gives its name. Its western side is washed by the waves of the Mediterranean, and on the south lies the bay, beyond which may be seen the town of Caipha, on the site of the ancient Calamos, and, rising high above both, the shrubby heights of Carmel. The mountains belonging to the chain of AntiLibanus are seen at the distance of about four leagues to the north, while to the east the view is bounded by the fruitful hills of the Lower Galilee. The bay, from the town of Acre to the promontory of Mount Carmel, is three leagues wide and two in depth. The port, on account of its shallowness, can only be entered by vessels of small burden; but there is excellent anchorage on the other side of the bay, before Caipha, which is, in fact, the roadstead of Acre. In the time of Strabo Accho was a great city, and it has continued to be a place of importance down to the present time. But after the Turks gained possession of it, Acre so rapidly declined, that the travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries concur in describing it as much fallen from its former glory. Traces of its ancient magnificence, however, still remained in the fragments of spacious buildings, sacred and secular, and in portions of old walls of extraordinary height and thickness. An impulse was given to the prosperity of the place by the measures of Sheikh Daher, and afterwards of Djezzar Pasha, and the town greatly increased in actual importance. The population in 1819 was computed at 10,000, of whom 3000 were Turks, the rest Christians of various denominations. Approached from Tyre the city presented a beautiful appearance, from the trees in the inside, which rise above the wall, and from the ground immediately around it on the outside being planted with orange, lemon, and palm trees. Inside, the streets had the usual narrowness and filth of Turkish towns; the houses solidly built with stone, with flat roofs; the bazaars mean, but tolerably well supplied. The principal objects were the mosque built by Djezzar Pasha, the pasha's seraglio, the granary, and the arsenal. The trade was not considerable; the exports consisted chiefly of grain and cotton, the produce of the neighbouring plain; and the imports chiefly of rice, coffee, and sugar from Damietta. As thus described, the city was all but demolished in 1832 by the hands of Ibrahim Pasha; and although considerable pains were taken to restore it, yet, as lately as 1837, it still exhibited a most wretched appearance, with ruined houses and broken arches in every direction.

As the fame of Acre is rather modern than biblical, its history must in this place be briefly told. It belonged to the Phoenicians, until they, in common with the Jews, were subjugated by the Babylonians. By the latter it was doubtless maintained as a military station against Egypt, as it was afterwards by the Persians. In the distribution of Alexander's dominions Accho fell to the lot of Ptolemy Soter, who valued the acquisition, and gave it his own name. Afterwards it fell into the hands of the kings of Syria; and is repeatedly mentioned in the wars of the Maccabees. It was at one time the headquarters of their heathen enemies. In the endeavour of Demetrius Soter and Alexander

Balas to bid highest for the support of Jonathan, the latter gave Ptolemais and the lands around to the temple at Jerusalem. Jonathan was afterwards invited to meet Alexander and the king of Egypt at that place, and was treated with great distinction by them, but there he at length (B.c. 144) met his death through the treachery of Tryphon. Alexander Jannæus took advantage of the civil war between Antiochus Philometor and Antiochus Cyzicenus to besiege Ptolemais, as the only maritime city in those parts, except Gaza, which he had not subdued; but the siege was raised by Ptolemy Lathyrus (then king of Cyprus), who got possession of the city, of which he was soon deprived by his mother Cleopatra. She probably gave it, along with her daughter Selene, to Antiochus Grypus, king of Syria. At least, after his death, Selene held possession of that and some other Phoenician towns, after. Tigranes, king of Armenia, had acquired the rest of the kingdom. But an injudicious attempt to extend her dominions drew upon her the vengeance of that conqueror, who, in B.C. 70, reduced Ptolemais, and, while thus employed, received with favour the Jewish embassy which was sent by Queen Alexandra, with valuable presents, to seek his friendship. A few years after, Ptolemais was absorbed, with all the country, into the Roman empire; and the rest of its ancient history is obscure and of little note. It is only mentioned in the New Testament from St. Paul having spent a day there on his voyage to Cæsarea (Acts xxi. 7). It continued a place of importance, and was the seat of a bishopric in the first ages of the Christian Church. The see was filled sometimes by orthodox and sometimes by Arian bishops; and it has the equivocal distinction of having been the birth-place of the Sabellian heresy. Accho, as we may now again call it, was an imperial garrison town when the Saracens invaded Syria, and was one of those that held out until Cæsarea was taken by Amru in A.D. 638.

The Franks first became masters of it in A.D. 1110, when it was taken by Baldwin, king of Jerusalem. But in A.D. 1187 it was recovered by Salahed-din, who retained it till A.D. 1191, when it was retaken by the Christians. This was the famous siege in which Richard Cœurde-Lion made so distinguished a figure. The Christians kept it exactly one hundred years, or till A.D. 1291; and it was the very last place of which they were dispossessed. It had been assigned to the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem, who fortified it strongly, and defended it valiantly, till it was at length wrested from them by Khalil ben Kelaoun, or Melek Seruf, Sultan of Egypt. Under this dominion it remained till A.D. 1517, when the Mamluke dynasty was overthrown by Selim I., and all its territories passed to the Turks. After this Acre remained in quiet obscurity till the middle of the last century, when the Arab Sheikh Daher took it by surprise. Under him the place recovered some of its trade and importance. He was succeeded by the barbarous but able tyrant Djezzar Pasha, who strengthened the fortifications and improved the town. Under him it rose once more into fame, through the gallant and successful resistance which, under the direc