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The agate was the second stone in the third row of the pectoral of the High Priest. Exod. xxviii. 19, and xxxix. 12.

ALABASTER. Aλabaoтgov. Perhaps the name is from the species of whitish stone, called in Arabic, BATSRATON, and adding the article AL; AL-BATSRATON: a species of onyx 10.

It is a

The Septuagint once use aλabarreos, 2 Kings xxi. 13. for the Hebrew by, a dish or platter; and the word occurs in the Greek of Matth. xxvi. 7. Mark xiv. 3. and Luke vii. 37. The name of a genus of fossils nearly allied to marble. bright elegant stone, sometimes of a snowy whiteness. It may be cut freely, and is capable of a fine polish. Being of a soft nature, it is wrought into any form or figure with ease. Vases or cruises were anciently made of it, wherein to preserve odoriferous liquors and ointments. Pliny and others represent it as peculiarly proper for this purpose11. And the druggists in Egypt have, at this day, vessels made of it, in which they keep their medicines and perfumes. Herodotus 12, among the presents sent by Cambyses to the king of Ethiopia, mentions Mupou Aλabaσтgov: Theocritus, Συριω δε μυρων χρυσει αλαβαστρα, gilded alabasters of Syrian ointment; and Cicero, alabaster plenus unguenti. Whence we learn that the term was used for the vase itself.

In Matth. xxvi. 6, 7, we read that Jesus being at table in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, Mary, the sister of Lazarus and of Martha, came thither and poured an alabaster box of ointment on his head. As to the expression, breaking the box, it merely implies, that the seal upon the vase which closed it, and kept the perfume from evaporating, had never been removed, but that it was on this occasion broken, that is, first opened 13.

Dr. Adam Clarke assigns the following reasons for this construction, (1.) That it is not likely that a box (vase, or bottle), exceedingly precious in itself, should be broken to get out its contents. (2.) That the broken pieces would be very inconvenient if not injurious to the head of our Lord, and to the hands of the woman. (3.) That it would not be easy effectually to separate the oil from the broken pieces. And, (4.) That it was a custom in the eastern countries to seal the bottles with wax that held

10

Comp. Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. xxxvi. c. 7. "Onychem etiamnum in Arabiæ montibus, nec usquam alicubi, nasci putavere nostri veteres:" et lib. xxxvi c.8. “Hunc aliqui lapidem alabastriten vocant, quem cavant ad vasa unguentaria, quoniam optime servare incorrupta dicitur." Between the Nile and the Red Sea, in Egyptian Arabia, was a city hence called Alabastra. Plin. lib. v. c. 9.

11" Vas unguentarium, quod ex alabastrite lapide ad unguenta a corruptione conservanda excavare solebant." Plin. N. H. lib. xiii. c. 2. Athen. 1. vi. 19. xv. 13. Plutarch in Alexandr. p. 676. Theocritus, Idyl. xv. v. 114. 12 Lib. iii. c. 20.

13 Harmer's Obs. v. 4. p. 472. So we have a familiar phrase, which may perhaps apply: when we say, for instance, “break a guinea," we mean spend a part of it.

the perfumes 14. So that to come at their contents no more was necessary than to break the seal, which this woman appears to have done; and when the seal was thus broken, she had no more to do than to pour out the liquid ointment, which she could not have done had she broken the bottle.

ALGUM.

or

N, ALGUMMIM, 1 Kings x. 11, 12. This is the name of a kind of wood, or tree, large quantities of which were brought by the fleet of Solomon from Ophir, of which he made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for his own palace, also musical instruments. See ALMUG.

ALMOND-TREE. n LUZ. Arabic, lauz. Translated hazel, Gen. xxx. 3715, PW SHAKAD, rendered almond, Gen. xliii. 11, Exod. xxv. 33, 34, xxxvii. 19, 20, Numb. xvii. 8, Eccles. xii. 5, and Jer. i. 11. The first name may be that of the tree; the other, that of the fruit, or nut.

A tree resembling the peach tree in its leaves and blossoms, but the fruit is longer and more compressed, the outer green coat is thinner and drier when ripe, and the shell of the stone is not so rugged. This stone, or nut, contains a kernel, which is the only esculent part. The whole arrives at maturity in September, when the outer tough cover splits open and discharges the nut.

From the circumstance of its blossoming the earliest of any of the trees, beginning as soon as the rigour of winter is past, and before it is in leaf, it has its Hebrew name shakad, which comes from a verb signifying to make haste, to be in a hurry, or to awake early. Thus in Jerem. i. 11, where the Prophet is shown the rod of an almond tree16, GOD means to indicate to him by it, that as this tree makes haste to bud, as though it took the first opportunity, so he would hasten his judgment upon people. There is here, says Dr. BLANEY, at once an allusion to the property of the almond tree, and in the original a paranomasia, which makes it more striking there than it can be in a translation.

the

In like manner, when SOLOMON, speaking of an old man, Eccles. xii. 5, says the almond tree shall flourish, he intends to express by it the quickness by which old age advances and surprises us; while the snow white blossoms upon the bare boughs of the tree aptly illustrate the hoary head and defenceless state of age17.

AARON'S rod which budded, and by this means secured to him the priesthood, was a branch of this tree. Numb. xvii. 8. Mr. PARKHURST suggests that probably the chiefs of the tribes

14 The bottles which contain the Attyr of roses, which come from the East, are sealed in this manner. See a number of proofs relative to this point in Har

mer's Obs. V. iv. p. 469.

15 R. Saadia, in Ab. Ezrae, Comment. in Genes. "Luz. est amygdalus, quia ita eam appellant Arabes; nam hæ duæ linguæ et Syriacæ ejusdem sunt familiæ." See also Ben Melech in Miclal Jophi Gen. 43. Hiller, Hierophyt. p. 1. · p. 215. Celsius, Hierobot. p. ii. pag. 253. Cocquius, 227.

16 In the Vulgate, "virgam vigilantem,” a waking rod.

17 Mr. Harmer has, however, given this a different turn. Obs. v. 4. p. 49.

bore each an almond rod, or wand, as emblematical of their vigilance

ALMUG-TREE. N ALMUG, and plural DN ALMUGIM, and ALGUMMIM.

A certain kind of wood mentioned 1 Kings, x. 11, 2 Chron. ii. 8, and ix. 10, 11. Jerom and the Vulgate render it ligna thyina, and the Septuagint Cuλa weλenyta, wrought wood. Several critics understand it to mean gummy wood 18; but a wood abounding in resin must be very unfit for the uses to which this is said to be applied. Celsius queries if it be not the sandal 19; but Michaelis thinks the particular species of wood to be wholly unknown to us 20.

Josephus, however, describes it particularly. "The ships from Ophir, says he, brought precious stones and pine trees which Solomon made use of for supporting the temple and his palace, as also for making musical instruments, the harps and psalteries of the Levites 21. The wood which was brought him at this time was larger and finer than any that had ever been brought before; but let none imagine that these pine trees were like those which are now so named, and which take their denomination from the merchants who so call them, that they may procure them to be admired by those that purchase them 22; for those we speak of were to the sight like the wood of the fig tree, but were whiter and more shining. Now we have said thus much, that nobody may be ignorant of the difference between these sorts of wood, nor unacquainted with the nature of the genuine pine tree, and the uses which the king made of it."

Dr. Shaw supposes that the Almug-tree was the Cypress; and he observes that the wood of this tree is still used in Italy and other places for violins, harpsichords, and other stringed instruments 23.

ALOE. OLAR. Syriac.

A plant with broad leaves, nearly two inches thick, prickly and chamfered. It grows about two feet high. A very bitter gum is extracted from it, used for medicinal purposes, and anciently for embalming dead bodies 24. Nicodemus is said, John xix. 39, to have brought one hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes to embalm the body of Jesus. The quantity has been exclaimed against by certain Jews, as being enough for fifty bodies. But instead of ɛnatov it might originally have been written denarov, ten pounds weight. However, at the funeral of Herod there were five hundred agapaтopop8s, spice bearers 25; and at that of R. Gamaliel, eighty pounds of opobalsamum were used 26.

19 Celsius, Hierobot. v.
21 Antiq. lib. viii. c. 7.

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1. P.

171.

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18 Hiller, Hierophyt. c. xiii. § 7.
20 Quest. xci.
22 He must intend the Indian pine, which is somewhat like the fir tree.
23 Trav. p. 422.

24 See the authorities quoted in Greenhill's Art of Embalming.
25 Josephus, Antiq. 1. xvii. c. 10. 25 Talmud, Messachoth Semach, 8.

The wood which God showed Moses, that with it he might sweeten the waters of Marah, is called alvah, Exod. xv. 25. The word has some relation to aloe; and some interpreters are of opinion that Moses used a bitter sort of wood, that so the power of God might be the more remarkable.

Mr. Bruce mentions a town, or large village, by the name of Elvah. It is thickly planted with trees; is the Oasis parva of the ancients; and the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt. He also observes that the Arabs call a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn, either in wood or flower, by the name of Elvah. "It was this, say they, with which Moses sweetened the waters of Marah; and with this, too, did Kalib Ibn el Walid sweeten those of Elvah, once bitter, and give the place the name of this circumstance."

may

It be that God directed Moses to the very wood proper for the purpose. But then it must be owned that the water of these parts continues bad to this day, and is so greatly in want of something to improve it, that had such a discovery been communicated by Moses it would hardly have been lost; for the instance referred to of Waalid seems either never to have been repeated, or to have proved ineffectual in other cases. M. Niebuhr, when in these parts, inquired after wood capable of this effect, but could gain no information of any such.

It will not, however, from hence follow that Moses really used a bitter wood; but, as Providence usually works by the proper and fit means to accomplish its ends, it seems likely that the wood he made use of was, in some degree at least, corrective of that quality which abounded in the water, and so render it potable. This seems to have been the opinion of the author of Ecclesiasticus, ch. xxxviii. 5.

That other water, also, requires some correction, and that such a correction is applied to it, appears from the custom in Egypt in respect to that of the Nile, which, though somewhat muddy, is rendered pure and salutary by being put into jars, the inside of which is rubbed with a paste made of bitter almonds 28. This custom might have been familiar to Moses, as it is of great antiquity.

The first discoverers of the Floridas are said to have corrected the stagnant and fetid water they found there, by infusing in it branches of sassafras; and it is understood that the first inducement of the Chinese to the general use of tea, was to correct the water of their ponds and rivers.

I. The LIGN-ALOE, or AGALLOCHUM, Numb. xxiv. 6. Psal. xlv. 9. and Cantic. iv. 14. N AHALOTH, masculine AHEL, whose plural is N AHALIM, is a small tree, about eight or ten feet high. Michaelis inquires if it be not possible that there is a transposition of the letters and word, so as to render it 27 Trav, v. 2. p. 470, 28 Niebuhr's Trav. V. 1. p. 71.'.

correspondent to the Greek aλon; and if it is not even probable that the Jews might have been led to make this alteration in reference to their respect to Elohim, the name of the deity, to which it bore too near a resemblance. This, however, is only conjectural criticism.

In Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinensis, tom. ii. p. 29–40, may be found a particular description of the tree, and Tab. x. an engraving.

At the top of the Aloe-tree is a large bunch of leaves, which are thick and indented, broad at the bottom, but growing narrower toward the point, and about four feet in length. Its blossoms are red, intermixed with yellow; and double, like a pink. From the blossom comes the fruit, or pod, which is oblong and triangular, with three apartments filled with seed.

That the flower of this plant yielded a fragrance is assured to us in the following extract from Swinburne's Travels, letter xii. "This morning, like many of the foregoing ones, was delicious. The sun rose gloriously out of the sea, and all the air around was perfumed with the effluvia of the ALOE, as its rays sucked up the dew from the leaves."

This extremely bitter plant contains under the bark three sorts of wood. The first is black, solid, and weighty; the second is of a tawny colour, of a light spongy texture, very porous, and filled with a resin extremely fragrant and agreeable; the third kind of wood, which is the heart, has a strong aromatic odour, and is esteemed in the east more precious than gold itself. It is used for perfuming habits and apartments, and is administered as a cordial in fainting and epileptic fits 29. These pieces, called calunbac, are carefully preserved in pewter boxes, to prevent their drying. When they are used they are ground upon a marble with such liquids as are best suited to the purpose for which they are intended. This wood, mentioned Cantic. iv. 14. in conjunction with several other odoriferous plants there referred to, was in high esteem among the Hebrews for its exquisite exhalations.

"The scented aloe, and each shrub that showers

Gum from its veins, and odours from its flowers."

Thus the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xxiv. 15. I gave a sweet smell like the cinnamon and asphaltus. I yielded a pleasant odour like the best myrrh; like galbanum and onyx, and fragrant storax, and like the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle.

It may not be amiss to observe that the Persian translator renders ahalim, sandal-wood; and the same was the opinion of a certain Jew in Arabia who was consulted by Niebuhr. See LIGN-ALOE.

AMBER. Own CHASMAL. Ezek. i. 4, 27, and viii. 2.

29 Lady M. W. Montague's Letters, v. 2. p. 91. Arabian Nights' Entertainments, v. 5. No. 171. Hasselquist, p. 249. Raynal's Indies, v. 2. p. 279.

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