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NETEST, we may derive it from the verb w NETES, which signifies," to dig up;" the very meaning of fossil, which comes from the Latin word fodio, " to dig. "to dig." So the Hebrew must either mean minerals in general, or at least a native and not a factitious mineral.

The word brass occurs very often in our translation of the Bible; but that is a mixed metal, for the making of which we are indebted to the German metallurgists of the thirteenth century. That, the ancients knew not the art of making it is almost certain. None of their writings even hint at the process.

There can be no doubt that copper is the original metal intended. This is spoken of as known prior to the flood; and to have been discovered, or at least wrought, as was also iron, in the seventh generation from Adam, by Tubalcain; whence the name Vulcan. The knowledge of these two metals must have been carried over the world afterwards, with the spreading colonies of the Noachida. An acquaintance with the one and the other was absolutely necessary to the existence of the colonists; the clearing away of the woods about their settlements, and the erection of houses for their habitation. Agreeably to this, the ancient histories of the Greeks and Romans speak of Cadmus as the inventor of the mineral which by the former is called naλnos, and by the latter as; and from him had the denomination cadmea. According to others, Cadmus discovered a mine, of which he taught the use. The person here spoken of was undoubtedly the same with Ham, or Ĉam, the son of Noah, who probably learned the art of assaying metals from the family of Tubalcain, and communicated that knowledge to the people of the colony which he settled 45.

All the Greek writers, even to Hesiod, speak of naλnos, by which I am convinced a simple, and not a compound metal is intended: whence came the Latin word calx, the heel, and calco, to tread upon; as much as to say, something under feet, beneath the surface of the earth. The Romans gave, as I observed before, the name as to the same substance, and we have translated it "brass 46," though it is as likely to have been copper. Indeed Castel says, it was the same with what was afterwards called cuprum. Pliny is the first who uses the term cupreus; and since

See this formation of the name in Bryant's Mythology, and hence, by a transposition of the vowels, the name of the idol mentioned, Amos, v. 26. 113 by

BAL-CHIUN.

45 From the mixture of copper and cadmean earth, [a kind of lapis calaminaris] was made the aurichalcum. "Cadmia terra, quæ in æs conjicitur ut fiat aurichalcum.' FESTUS.

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46 Lexic. Med.

47 Cuprum. Nondum prolatus auctor antiquior Spartiano Caracalla. Gesner, Thesaur. Ling. Lat.

his time, cuprum, which is a corruption of as cyprinum, has gone into general use. See COPPER.

BRIER.

This word occurs several times in our translation of the Bible, but with various authorities from the original.

הברקנים

(1.) ' HABARKANIM. Jud. viii. 7, 16, is a particular kind of thorn. See THORN.

(2.) CHEDEK, Prov. xv. 19, and Micah, vii. 4. It seems hardly possible to determine what kind of plant this is. Some kind of tangling prickly shrub is undoubtedly meant. In the former passage, there is a beautiful exposition, which is lost in our rendering. "The narrow way of the slothful, is like a perplexed path among briers; whereas the broad road, (elsewhere rendered 'causeway'), of the righteous is a high bank;" that is, free from obstructions, direct, conspicuous, and open. The common course of life of these two characters answers to this comparison. Their manner of going about business, or of transacting it, answers to this. An idle man always takes the most intricate, the most oblique, and eventually the most thorny measures to accomplish his purpose; the honest and diligent man prefers the most open and direct; So in Micah, the unjust judge, taking bribes, is a brier, holding every thing that comes within his reach, hooking all that he can catch.

"Sauciat atque rapit spinus paliurus acutis;
Hoc etiam Judex semper avarus agit."

.SEREBIM סרבים (.3)

Ezek. ii. 6. This word is translated by the LXX TugoiGTGEGOVO stung by the astrus, or gadfly; and they use the like word in Hosea, iv. Ổ, where, what in our version is "a backsliding heifer," they render a heifer stung by the astrus. These coincident renderings make me believe, that both places may be understood of some venomous insect. The word SARAR may lead us to sarran, by which the Arabs thus describe

a great bluish fly, having greenish eyes, its tail armed with a piercer, by which it pesters almost all horned cattle, settling on their heads, &c. Often it creeps up the noses of asses. It is a species of gadfly, but carrying its sting in its tail 48" (4.) SILLON, Ezek. xxviii. 24, and D SILLUNIM, Ezek. ii. 6, must be classed among thorns. The second word Parkhurst supposes to be a kind of thorn, overspreading a large surface of ground, as the dew-brier. It is used in connexion with which in Gen. iii. 18, is rendered "thorns." The author of Scripture Illustrated" queries, however, whether, as it is associated with "scorpions" in Ezek. ii. 6, both this word and SEREBIM, may not mean some species of venomous insects. (5.) 7 SIRPAD, mentioned only in Isai. Iv. 13, probably

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48 Meninski, Lexic. 2643.

KUTJ,

means a prickly plant; but what particular kind it is impossible to determine 49.

שמיר

(6.) SAMIR. This word is used only by the prophet Isaiah, and in the following places; chap. v. 6; vii. 23, 24, 25; ix. 17; x. 17; xxvii. 4; and xxxii. 13. It is probably a brier of a low kind; such as overruns uncultivated lands 50. See BRAMBLE, NETTLE, THISTLE, THORN.

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Occ. Gen. xix. 24; Deut. xxix. 23; Job, xviii. 15; Psal. xi. 6; Isai. xxx. 33; xxxiv. 9; and Ezek. xxxviii. 22.

It is rendered Olov by the Septuagint, as it is also called in Luke, xvii. 29.

In Job, xviii. 15, Bildad, describing the calamities which overtake the wicked person, says " brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation." This has been supposed to be a satirical allusion to that part of Job's substance which was consumed by fire from heaven: but it possibly may be only a general expression, to designate any great destruction: as that in Psal. xi. 6. "Upon the wicked, he shall rain fire and brimstone." Moses, among other calamities which he sets forth in case of the people's disobedience, threatens them with the fall of brimstone, salt, and burning like the overthrow of Sodom, &c. Deut. xxix. 23. The prophet Isaiah, xxxiv. 9, writes that the anger of the Lord shall be shown by the streams of his vengeance being turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone. Allow that these expressions may have a more immediate regard to some former remarkable punishments, as that place in Deuteronomy manifestly does; yet no doubt but that they may be used in a figurative, general sense, to intimate the divine displeasure on any extraordinary occasion. It is very reasonable to think that most, if not all proverbial sayings and sententious maxims take their beginning from certain real facts 51.

BULL. The male of the beeve kind; and it is to be recollected that the Hebrews never castrated animals.

There are several words translated "bull" in Scripture, of which the following is a list, with the meaning of each.

_SHOR שור .THEO תאן

A bove, or cow, of any age.

The wild bull, oryx or buffalo. Occurs only Deut. xiv. 5; and in Isai. li. 20, n thoa with the interchange of the two last letters.

49 Specimen nemo detexit, nec detegere potuit, cum a multis seculis in oblivionem venerit. Celsius, Hierob. V. 2. p. 218. "Plane ablego lectores ad Celsium, qui fassus est, nihil se scire, varias sententias referens: bene agent lectores, si nihil se illo plus certi habere sentient, donec aliquid novæ lucis adfulgeat." -"Nullum similem nomen habent reliquæ linguæ orientales, ergo fas est sapienti, Celsio quoque, fas sit et mihi, aliquid ignorare. Ignorantiæ professio via ad inveniendum verum, si quis in Oriente quæsierit." Michaelis, Sup. Lex. Heb. 50 The Arabic version of Isai. vii. 23, 24, is bur,“ terram incultam.” Hence our word bur.

51 Chappellow, in loc.

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NABBIRE. A word implying strength, translated "bulls," Psal. xxii. 12, l. 13, lxviii. 30; Isai. xxxiv. 7; and Jerem. xlvi. 1552.

BEKAR. Herds, horned cattle of full age.

A full grown bull, or cow, fit for propagating.
A full grown, plump young bull; and in the fem.

.PAR פר

.OGEL עגל

a heifer.

.TOR תור

Chaldee taur, and Latin taurus. The ox accustomed to the yoke. Occurs only in Ezra, vi. 9, 17, vii. 17; and Dan. iv. 25, 32, 33, xxii. 29, 30.

This animal was reputed by the Hebrews to be clean, and was generally made use of by them for sacrifices. The Egyptians had a particular veneration for it, and paid divine honours to it; and the Jews imitated them in the worship of the golden calves, or bulls, in the wilderness, and in the kingdom of Israel. See CALF.

SEH.]

The following remarks of Dr. Adam Clarke on Exod. xxii. 1, may serve to illustrate this article. "If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep." He observes that "in our translation of this verse, by rendering different words by the same term in English, we have greatly obscured the sense. I shall produce the verse, with the original words which I think improperly translated, because one English term is used for two Hebrew words, which, in this place, certainly do not mean the same thing. If a man shall steal an ox [SHOR] or a sheep [AW SEH] and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen, [ BAKAR] for an ox, [ SHOR] and four sheep, [y TSON] for a sheep [ I think it must appear evident that the sacred writer did not intend that these words should be understood as above. A SHOR certainly is different from a BAKAR, and a SEH from a TSON. Where the difference in every case lies wherever these words occur, it is difficult to say. The SHOR and the BAKAR are doubtless creatures of the beeve kind, and are used in different parts of the sacred writings, to signify the bull, the ox, the heifer, the steer, and the calf. The SEH and the TSON are used to signify the ram, the wether, the ewe, the lamb, the he goat, the she goat, and the kid; and the latter word TSON seems frequently to signify the flock composed of either of these lesser cattle, or both sorts conjoined.

"As SHOR is used Job, xxi. 10, for a bull, probably it may mean so here. If a man steal a bull, he shall give five oxen for him, which we may presume was no more than his real value; as very few bulls could be kept in a country destitute of horses,

52 In Jer. xlvi. 15, forty-eight of Dr. Kennicot's codices read thy strong, or mighty one, in the singular. The Septuagint explain the word by Amis o MOTXOS O EXλEXTOS σu, Apis, thy chosen calf; as if that idol were particularly in.

tended.

where oxen were so necessary to till the ground. For though some have imagined that there were no castrated cattle among the Jews, yet this cannot be admitted on the above reason; for as they had no horses, and bulls would have been unmanageable and dangerous, they must have had oren for the purposes of agriculture. TSON is used for a flock either of sheep or goats; and SEH for an individual of either species. For every SEH, four, taken indifferently from the TSON or flock, must be given: that is, a sheep stolen might be recompensed with four out of the flock, whether of sheep or goats. So that a goat might be compensated with four sheep; or a sheep with four goats.'

The WILD BULL is found in the Syrian and Arabian deserts 53. It is frequently mentioned by the Arabian poets, who are copious in their descriptions of hunting it, and borrow many images from its beauty 54, strength, swiftness, and the loftiness of its horns. They represent it as fierce and untamable; as being white on the back, and having large shining eyes 55.

Some authors have supposed the buffalo, well known in India, Abyssinia, and Egypt, to be intended. This animal is as big or bigger than a common ox. Is sullen, spiteful, malevolent, fierce, and untamable. Others 56, again, have thought it the oryx of the Greeks, or the Egyptian antelope, described by Dr. Shaw, under the name of Bekker el wash 57.

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Occ. Exod. ii. 3; Job, viii. 11; and Isai. xviii. 2, xxxv. 7. A plant growing on the banks of the Nile, and in marshy grounds. The stalk rises to the height of six or seven cubits, besides two under water. This stalk is triangular, and terminates in a crown of small filaments resembling hair, which the ancients used to compare to a thyrsus. This reed, the Cyperus papyrus of Linnæus, commonly called "the Egyptian reed," was of the greatest use to the inhabitants of the country where it grew; the pith contained in the stock served them for food, and the woody part to build vessels with, which vessels are to be seen on the engraven stones and other monuments of Egyptian antiquity. For this purpose they made it up, like rushes, into bundles, and by tying these bundles together, gave their vessels the necessary shape and solidity. "The vessels of bullrushes," or papyrus, that are mentioned in sacred and profane history, says Dr. Shaw (Trav. p. 437), were no other than large fabrics of the same kind with that of Moses, Exod. ii. 3; which, from the late introduction of plank and stronger materials, are now laid aside. Thus Pliny, N. H. 1. vi. c. 16, takes notice of

53 The Urus of Pliny and the ancients.

54 The beauty of Joseph is compared to that of a bullock. Deut. xxxiii. 17. 55 Scott on Job, xxxix. 9. 56 Bochart, Shaw, Lowth, &c.

57 It is also an inhabitant of Syria, Arabia, and Persia. It is the antelope oryx of Linnæus. 58 Isai. xviii. 2.

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