the plain, afterwards covered by the Dead Sea, or Asphaltite Lake; its eastern border extending from thence, northwards, to Laish, Dan, or the springs of the Jordan; and its northern border, from thence to Sidon, westward. Of Canaan's sons, Sidon, the eldest, occupied the north-west corner, and built the town of that name, so early celebrated for her luxury and commerce in scripture, Judges xviii. 7; 1 Kings v. 6; and by Homer, who calls the Sidonians, Toλudaídaλoi, skilled in many arts. And Tyre, so flourishing afterwards, though boasting of her own antiquity, Isai. xxiii. 7, is styled " a daughter of Sidon," or a colony from thence, Isaiah v. 12. Heth, his second son, and the Hittites, his descendants, appear to have settled in the south, near Hebron, Gen. xxiii. 3—7; and next to them, at Jerusalem, the Jebusites, or descendants of Jebus, both remaining in their original settlements till David's days; 2 Sam. xi. 3; v. 6-9. Beyond the Jebusites, were settled the Emorites, or Amorites, Num. xiii. 29, who extended them. selves beyond Jordan, and were the most powerful of the Canaanite tribes, Gen. xv. 16, Num. xxi. 21, until they were destroyed by Moses and Joshua, with the rest of the devoted nations of Canaan's family.

3. Shem and his family are noticed last, Gen. x. 21-30. His posterity were confined to middle Asia. (1.) His son Elam appears to have been settled in Elymais, or southern Persia, contiguous to the maritime tract of Chusistan, Dan. viii. 2. (2.) His son Ashur planted the land thence called Assyria, which soon became a province of the Cushite, or Cuthic empire, founded by Nimrod. (3.) Arphaxad, through his grandson, Eber, branched out into the two houses of Peleg and Joktan. Peleg probably remained in Chaldea, or southern Babylonia, at the time of the dispersion; for there we find his grandson, Terah, and his family, settled at Ur of the Chaldees," Gen. xi. 31. Of the numerous children of Joktan, it is said by Moses, that "their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east." Faber is inclined to believe that they were the ancestors of the great body of the Hindus, who still retain a lively tradition of the patriarch Shem, Shama, or Sharma; and that the land of Ophir, abounding in gold, so called from one of the sons of Joktan, lay beyond the Indus, eastward. (4.) Lud was probably the father of the Ludim or Lydians, of Asia Minor; for this people had a tradition that they were descended from Lud or Lydus, according to Josephus. (5.) The children of Aram planted the fertile country north of Babylonia, called Aram Naharaim, " Aram between the two rivers," the Euphrates and the Tigris, thence called by the Greeks, Mesopotamis, Gen. xxiv. 10, and Padan Aram, the level country of Aram, Gen. xxv. 20. This country of Aram is frequently rendered Syria in scripture, Judges x. 6; Hosea xii. 12, &c.;

which is not to be confounded with Palestine Syria, into which they afterwards spread themselves, still retaining their original name of Apuot, or Arameans, noticed by Homer in his "Iliad."

4. Upon this distribution of Noah's posterity we shall only observe, that the Deity presided over all their counsels and deliberations, and that he guided and settled all mankind according to the dictates of his allcomprehending wisdom and benevolence. To this purpose, the ancients themselves, according to Pindar, retained some idea that the dispersion of men was not the effect of chance, but that they had been settled in different countries by the appointment of Providence, Gen. xi. 8, 9; Deut. xxii. 8. This dispersion, and that confusion of languages with which it originated, was intended, by the counsel of an all-wise Providence, to counteract and defeat the scheme which had been projected by the descendants of Noah, for maintaining their union, implied in their proposing to make themselves a name, w, which Schultens, in Job i. 1, derives from the Arabic verb, or Now, to be high, elevated, or eminent. By this scheme, which seems to have been a project of state policy, for keeping all men together under the present chiefs and their successors, a great part of the earth must, for a long time, have been uninhabited, and overrun with wild beasts. The bad effects which this project would have had upon the minds, the morals, and religion of mankind, was, probably, the chief reason why God interposed to frustrate it as soon as it was formed. It had manifestly a direct tendency to tyranny, oppression, and slavery. Whereas in forming several independent governments by a small body of men, the ends of government, and the security of liberty and property, would be much better attended to, and more firmly established; which, in fact, was really the case; if we may judge of the rest by the constitution of one of the most eminent, the kingdom of Egypt, Gen. xlvii. 15-27. The Egyptians were masters of their persons and property, till they sold them to Pharaoh for bread; and then their servitude amounted to no more than the fifth part of the produce of the country, as an annual tax payable to the king. By this event, considered as a wise dispensation of Providence, bounds were set to the contagion of wickedness; evil example was confined, and could not extend its influence beyond the limits of one country; nor could wicked projects be carried on, with universal concurrence, by many small colonies, separated by the natural boundaries of mountains, rivers, barren deserts, and seas, and hindered from associating together by a variety of languages, unintelligible to each other. Moreover, in this dispersed state, they could, whenever God pleased, be made reciprocal checks upon each other, by invasions and wars, which would weaken the power, and humble the pride, of corrupt and

vicious communities. This dispensation was, therefore, properly calculated to prevent a second universal degeneracy; God dealing in it with men as rational agents, and adapting his scheme to their state and circumstances.

DIVORCE. As the ancient Hebrews paid a stipulated price for the privilege of marrying, they seemed to consider it the natural consequence of making a payment of that kind, that they should be at liberty to exercise a very arbitrary power over their wives, and to renounce or divorce them whenever they chose. This state of things, as Moses himself very clearly saw, was not equitable as respected the woman, and was very often injurious to both parties. Finding himself, however, unable to overrule feelings and practices of very ancient standing, he merely annexed to the original institution of marriage a very serious admonition to this effect, viz. that it would be less criminal for a man to desert his father and mother, than without adequate cause to desert his wife, Gen. ii. 14, compared with Malachi ii. 11-16. He also laid a restriction upon the power of the husband as far as this, that he would not permit him to repudiate the wife without giving her a bill of divorce. He further enacted in reference to this subject, that the husband might receive the repudiated wife back, in case she had not in the meanwhile been married to another but if she had been thus person; married, she could never afterwards become the wife of her first husband; a law, which the faith due to the second husband clearly required, Deut. xxiv. 1-4, compare Jer. iii. 1, and Matt. i. 19; xix. 8. The inquiry, "What should be considered an adequate cause of divorce," was left by Moses to be determined by the husband himself. He had liberty to divorce her, if he saw in her any thing naked, any thing displeasing or improper, any thing so much at war with propriety, and a source of so much dissatisfaction as to be, in the estimation of the husband, sufficient ground for separation. These expressions, however, were sharply contested as to their meaning in the later times of the Jewish nation. The school of Hillel contended, that the husband might lawfully put away the wife for any cause, even the smallest. The mistake committed by the school of Hillel in taking this ground was, that they confounded moral and civil law. It is true, as far as the Mosaic statute or the civil law was concerned, the husband had a right thus to do; but it is equally clear, that the ground of just separation must have been, not a trivial, but a prominent and important one, when it is considered, that he was bound to consult the rights of the woman, and was amenable to his conscience and his God. The school of Shammai explained the phrase, nakedness of a thing, to mean actual adultery. Our Lord agreed with the school of

Shammai as far as this, that the ground of divorce should be one of a moral nature, and not less than adultery; but he does not appear to have agreed with them in their opinion in respect to the Mosaic statute. On the contrary, he denied the equity of that statute, and in justification of Moses maintained, that he permitted divorces for causes below adultery, only in consequence of the hardness of the people's hearts, Matt. v. 31, 32; xviii. 1-9; Mark x. 2-12; Luke xvi. 18. Wives, who were considered the property of their husbands, did not enjoy by the Mosaic statutes a reciprocal right, and were not at liberty to dissolve the matrimonial alliance by giving a bill of divorce to that effect. In the latter periods, however, of the Jewish state, the Jewish matrons, the more powerful of them at least, appear to have imbibed the spirit of the ladies of Rome, and to have exercised in their own behalf the same power, that was granted by the Mosaic law only to their husbands, Mark vi. 17—29; x. 12.

DOCETE, the advocates of an early heresy, which taught that Christ acted and suffered, not in reality, but in appearance. They were so denominated from doke, to appear. See GNOSTICS.

DOCTORS, or TEACHERS, of the law, a class of men in great repute among the Jews. They had studied the law of Moses in its various branches, and the numerous interpretations which had been grafted upon it in later times; and, on various occasions, they gave their opinion on cases referred to them for advice. Nicodemus, himself a doctor (didoKaλos, teacher) of the law, comes to consult Jesus, whom he compliments in the same terms as he was accustomed to receive from his scholars: 66 Rabbi, we know that thou art didάokaλos, a competent teacher from God." Doctors of the law were chiefly of the sect of the pharisees; but they are sometimes distinguished from that sect, Luke v. 17.

DOG, 25, an animal well known. By the law of Moses, the dog was declared unclean, and was held in great contempt among the Jews, 1 Sam. xvii. 43; xxiv. 14; 2 Sam. ix. 8; 2 Kings viii. 13. Yet they had them in considerable numbers in their cities. They were not, however, shut up in their houses or courts, but forced to seek their food where they could find it. The Psalmist com pares violent men to dogs, who go about the city in the night, prowl about for their food, and growl, and become clamorous if they be not satisfied, Psalm lix. 6, 14, 15. Mr. Harmer has illustrated this by quotations from travellers into the east. The Turks also reckon the dog a filthy creature, and therefore drive him from their houses; so that with them dogs guard rather the streets and districts, than particular houses, and live on the offals that are thrown abroad. In 1 Sam. xxv. 3, Nabal is said to have been "churlish and evil in his manners; and he was of the house of Caleb ;" but Caleb

here is not a proper name. Literally, it is, "He was the son of a dog;" and so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic render it, he was irritable, snappish, and snarling as a dog. The irritable disposition of the dog is the foundation of that saying, "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears," Prov. xxvi. 17; that is, he wantonly exposes himself to danger.

In 1 Kings xxi. 23, it is said, "The dogs shall eat Jezebel." Mr. Bruce, when at Gondar, was witness to a scene in a great measure similar to the devouring of Jezebel by dogs. He says, "The bodies of those killed by the sword were hewn to pieces, and scattered about the streets, being denied burial. I was miserable, and almost driven to despair, at seeing my hunting-dogs, twice let loose by the carelessness of my servants, bringing into the court-yard the heads and arms of slaughtered men, and which I could no way prevent but by the destruction of the dogs themselves." He also adds, that upon being asked by the king the reason of his dejected and sickly appearance, among other reasons, he informed him, it was occasioned by an execution of three men, which he had lately seen; because the hyænas, allured into the streets by the quantity of carrion, would not let him' pass by night m safety from the palace; and because the dogs fled into his house, to eat pieces of human carcasses at their leisure." This account illustrates also the readiness of the dogs to lick the blood of Ahab, 1 Kings xx. 38; in conformity to which is the expression of the prophet Jeremiah, xv. 3, "I will appoint over them the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear."

2. The dog was held sacred by the Egyptians. This fact we learn from Juvenal, who complains, in his fifteenth satire,

Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam.

"Thousands regard the hound with holy fear,
Not one, Diana."
GIFFORD.

The testimony of the Latin poet is confirmed by Diodorus, who, in his first book, assures us that the Egyptians highly venerate some animals, both during their life and after their death; and expressly mentions the dog as one object of this absurd adoration. To these witnesses may be added Herodotus, who says, that when a dog expires, all the members of the family to which he belonged worship the carcass; and that, in every part of the kingdom, the carcasses of their dogs are embalmed, and deposited in consecrated ground. The idolatrous veneration of the dog by the Egyptians is shown in the worship of their dog-god Anubis, to whom temples and priests were consecrated, and whose image was borne in all religious ceremonies. Cynopolis, the present Minieh, situated in the lower Thebais, was built in honour of Anubis. The priests celebrated his festivals there with great pomp. "Anubis," says Strabo, "is the city of dogs, the capital of

the Cynopolitan prefecture. These animals are fed there on sacred aliments, and religion has decreed them a worship." An event, however, related by Plutarch, brought them into considerable discredit with the people. Cambyses, having slain the god Apis, and thrown his body into the field, all animals respected it except the dogs, which alone ate of his flesh. This impiety diminished the popular veneration. Cynopolis was not the only city where incense was burned on the altars of Anubis. He had chapels in almost all the temples. On solemnities, his image always accompanied those of Isis and Osiris. Rome, having adopted the ceremonies of Egypt, the emperor Commodus, to celebrate the Isiac feasts, shaved his head, and himself carried the dog Anubis.

66

3. In Matt. vii. 6, we have this direction of our Saviour: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they," the swine, trample them under their feet, and," the dogs, "turn again and tear you." It was customary, not only with the writers of Greece and Rome, but also with the eastern sages, to denote certain classes of men by animals supposed to resemble them among the brutes. Our Saviour was naturally led to adopt the same concise and energetic method. By dogs, which were held in great detestation by the Jews, he intends men of odious character and violent temper; by swine, the usual emblem of moral filth, he means the sensual and profligate; and the purport of his admonition is, that as it is a maxim with the priests not to give any part of the sacrifices to dogs, so it should be a maxim with you not to impart the holy instruction with which you are favoured, to those who are likely to blaspheme and to be only excited by it to rage and persecution. It is, however, a maxim of prudence, not of cowardice; and is to be taken along with other precepts of our Lord, which enjoin the publication of truth, at the expense of ease and even life.

DORT, Synod of. See SYNODS.

DOVE, 1. This beautiful genus of birds is very numerous in the east. In the wild state they generally build their nests in the holes or clefts of rocks, or in excavated trees; but they are easily taught submission and familiarity with mankind; and, when domesticated, build in structures erected for their accommodation, called "dove-cotes." They are classed by Moses among the clean birds; and it appears from the sacred as well as other writers, that doves were always held in the highest estimation among the eastern nations. Rosenmuller, in a note upon Bochart, derives the name from the Arabic, where it signifies mildness, gentleness, &c. The dove is mentioned in scripture as the symbol of simplicity, innocence, gentleness, and fidelity, Hosea vii.11; Matt. x. 16.

The following extract from Morier's Persian Travels illustrates a passage in Isaiah :

"In the environs of the city, to the westward, near the Zainderood, are many pigeonhouses, erected at a distance from habitations, for the sole purpose of collecting pigeons' dung for manure. They are large round towers, rather broader at the bottom than the top, and crowned by conical spiracles, through which the pigeons descend. Their interior resembles a honey-comb, pierced with a thousand holes, each of which forms a snug retreat for a nest. More care appears to have been bestowed upon their outside than upon that of the generality of the dwelling-houses; for they are painted and ornamented. The extraordinary flights of pigeons which I have seen alight upon one of these buildings afford, perhaps, a good illustration for the passage in Isaiah lx. 8: Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?' Their great numbers, and the compactness of their mass, literally look like a cloud at a distance, and obscure the sun in their passage."

The first mention of the dove in the scripture is Genesis viii. 8, 10-12, where Noah sent one from the ark to ascertain if the waters of the deluge had assuaged. She was sent forth thrice. The first time she speedily returned; having, in all probability, gone but a little way from the ark, as she must naturally be terrified at the appearance of the waters. After seven days, being sent out a second time, she returned with an olive leaf plucked off, whereby it became evident that the flood was considerably abated, and had sunk below the tops of the trees; and thus relieved the fears and cheered the heart of Noah and his family. And hence the olive branch has ever been among the forerunners of peace, and chief of those emblems by which a happy state of renovation and restoration to prosperity has been signified to mankind. At the end of other seven days, the dove, being sent out a third time, returned no more; from which Noah conjectured that the earth was so far drained as to afford sustenance for the birds and fowls; and he therefore removed the covering of the ark, which probably gave liberty to many of the fowls to fly off; and these circumstances afforded him the greater facility for making arrangements for disembarking the other animals. Doves might be offered in sacrifice, when those who were poor could not bring a more costly offering. DOWRY. See BRIDE.

DRACHMA. The value of a common drachma was sevenpence, English. A didrachma, or double drachma, made very near half a shekel; and four drachmas made nearly a shekel.

DRAGON. This word is frequently to be met with in our English translation of the Bible. It answers generally to the He

and these words are ;תנים תנין תן brew

variously rendered dragons, serpents, seamonsters, and whales. The Rev. James

Hurdis, in a dissertation relative to this subject, observes, that the word translated whales," in Gen. i. 21, occurs twenty-seven times in scripture; and he attempts, with much ingenuity, to prove that it everywhere signifies the crocodile. That it sometimes has this meaning, he thinks is clear from Ezekiel xxix. 3: "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers." For, to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than the crocodile? The same argument he draws from Isaiah li. 9: "Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab [Egypt], and wounded the dragon?" Among the ancients the crocodile was the symbol of Egypt, and appears so on Roman coins. Some however have thought the hippopotamus intended; others, one of the larger species of serpents.

DRAUGHTS, stupifying potions. At the time of execution, they gave the malefactor a grain of frankincense in a cup of wine, in order to stupify and render him less sensible of pain. This custom is traced to the charge of the wise man: "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts," Prov. xxxiv. 6. The prophet makes an allusion to the powerful effects of this stupifying draught, in that prediction which announces the judgments of God upon the empire of Babylon: "Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them," Jer. xxv. 15, 16. The Jews, according to the custom of their country, gave our Lord wine mingled with myrrh at his crucifixion. See CRUCIFIXION.

DREAMS. The easterns, in particular the Jews, greatly regarded dreams, and applied for their interpretation to those who undertook to explain them. The ancient Greeks and Romans had the same opinion of them, as appears from their most eminent writers. We see the antiquity of this attention to dreams in the history of Pharaoh's butler and baker, Gen. xl. Pharaoh himself, and Nebuchadnezzar, are instances. God expressly condemned to death all who pretended to have prophetic dreams, and to foretel futurities, even though what they foretold came to pass, if they had any tendency to promote idolatry, Deut. xiii. 1-3. But the people were not forbidden, when they thought they had a significative dream, to address the prophets of the Lord, or the High Priest in his ephod, to have it explained Saul, before the battle of Gilboa, consulted a woman who had a familiar spirit, "because the Lord would not answer him by dreams, nor by prophets," 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 7. The Lord himself sometimes discovered his will in dreams, and enabled persons to explain them. He informed Abimelech in a dream, that Sarah was the wife of Abraham, Gen. xx. 3, 6.

The

He showed Jacob the mysterious ladder in a dream, Gen. xxviii. 12, 13; and in a dream an angel suggested to him a means of multiplying his flocks, Genesis xxxi. 11, 12, &c. Joseph was favoured very early with prophetic dreams, whose signification was easily discovered by Jacob, Gen. xxxvii. 5. God said, that he spake to other prophets in dreams, but to Moses face to face. Midianites gave credit to dreams, as appears from that which a Midianite related to his companion; and from whose interpretation Gideon took a happy omen, Judges vii. 13, 15. The prophet Jeremiah exclaims against impostors who pretended to have had dreams, and abused the credulity of the people: "They prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him tell it faithfully, saith the Lord," Jer. xxiii. 25, 28, 29. The prophet Joel promises from God, that in the reign of the Messiah, the effusion of the Holy Spirit should be so copious, that the old men should have prophetic dreams, and the young men should receive visions, Joel ii. 28.

DRESS. See HABITS.

66

DROMEDARY. This name answers to two words in the original, 72, and feminine ~~2, Isa. lx. 6; Jer. ii. 24 ; and □unwns, Esther viii. 10, young dromedaries;" probably the name in Persian. The dromedary is a race of camels chiefly remarkable for its prodigious swiftness. The most observable difference between it and the camel is, that it has but one protuberance on the back; and instead of the slow solemn walk to which that animal is accustomed, it will go as far in one day as the camel in three. For this reason it is used to carry messengers where haste is required. The animal is governed by a bridle, which, being usually fastened to a ring fixed in the nose, may very well illustrate the expression, 2 Kings xix. 28, of turning back Sennacherib by putting a hook into his nose; and may farther indicate his swift retreat.

DUST, or ashes, cast on the head was a sign of mourning, Josh. vii. 6: sitting in the dust, a sign of affliction, Lam. iii. 29; Isaiah xlvii. 1. The dust also denotes the grave, Gen. iii. 19; Job vii. 21; Psalm xxii. 15. It is put for a great multitude, Gen. xiii. 16; Numbers xxiii. 10. It signifies a low or mean condition, 1 Sam. ii. 8; Nahum iii. 18. To shake or wipe off the dust of a place from one's feet, marks the renouncing of all intercourse with it in future. God threatens the Jews with rain of dust, &c., Deut. xviii. 24. An extract from Sir T. Roe's embassy may cast light on this: "Sometimes, in India, the wind blows very high in hot and dry seasons, raising up into the air a very great height, thick clouds of dust and sand. These dry showers most grievously annoy all those among whom they fall;

enough to smite them all with present blindness; filling their eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths too, if not well guarded; searching every place, as well within as without, so that there is not a little key-hole of any trunk or cabinet, if it be not covered, but receives this dust; add to this, that the fields, brooks, and gardens, suffer extremely from these terrible showers."

2. In almost every part of Asia, those who demand justice against a criminal throw dust upon him, signifying that he deserves to lose his life, and be cast into the grave; and that this is the true interpretation of the action, is evident from an imprecation in common use among the Turks and Persians, "Be covered with earth!" "Earth be upon thy head." We have two remarkable instances of casting dust recorded in scripture: the first is that of Shimei, who gave vent to his secret hostility to David, when he fled before his rebellious son, by throwing stones at him, and casting dust, 2 Sam. xvi. 13. It was an ancient custom, in those warm and arid countries, to lay the dust before a person of distinction, and particularly before kings and princes, by sprinkling the ground with water. To throw dust into the air while a person was passing, was therefore an act of great disrespect; to do so before a sovereign prince, an indecent outrage. But it is clear that Shimei meant more than disrespect and outrage to an afflicted king, whose subject he was; he intended to signify by that action, that David was unfit to live, and that the time was at last arrived to offer him a sacrifice to the ambition and vengeance of the house of Saul. This view of his conduct is confirmed by the behaviour of the Jews to the apostle Paul, when they seized him in the temple, and had nearly succeeded in putting him to death; they cried out, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live; and as they cried out and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle," Acts xxii. 23. A great similarity appears between the conduct of the Jews on this occasion, and the behaviour of the peasants in Persia, when they go to court to complain of the governors, whose oppressions they can no longer endure. They carry their complaints against their governors by companies, consisting of several hundreds, and sometimes of a thousand; they repair to that gate of the palace nearest to which their prince is most likely to be, where they set themselves to make the most horrid cries, tearing their garments, and throwing dust into the air, and demanding justice. The king, upon hearing these cries, sends to know the occasion of them: the people deliver their complaints in writing, upon which he informs them that he will commit the cognizance of the affair to such an one as he names; and in consequence of this, justice is usually obtained.

Z 2