Hebrews never castrated animals. There are several words translated
“bull” in Scripture, of which the following is a list, with the meaning
of each: שור, a bove, or cow, of any age. תאו, the wild bull, oryx, or
buffalo, occurs only Deut. xiv, 5; and in Isaiah li, 20, תוא, with the
interchange of the two last letters. אבירי, a word implying _strength_,
translated “bulls,” Psalm xxii, 12; l, 13; lxviii, 30; Isaiah xxxiv, 7;
Jer. xlvi, 15. בקר, herds, horned cattle of full age. פר, a full grown
bull, or cow, fit for propagating. עגל, a full grown, plump young bull;
and in the feminine, a heifer. תור, Chaldee _taur_, and Latin _taurus_;
the ox accustomed to the yoke: occurs only in Ezra vi, 9, 17; vii, 17;
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. The wild bull is found in the Syrian and
Arabian deserts. It is frequently mentioned by the Arabian poets, who
are copious in their descriptions of hunting it, and borrow many images
from its beauty, 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. Bulls, in a figurative and allegorical
sense, are taken for powerful, fierce, and insolent enemies, Psalm xxii,
12; lxviii, 30.
BULRUSH, גמא, Exodus ii, 3; Job viii, 11; Isaiah 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, beside 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 for building vessels, figures of which 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 bulrushes,” or papyrus, “that are mentioned in sacred
and profane history,” says Dr. Shaw, “were no other than large fabrics
of the same kind with that of Moses, Exodus ii, 3; which, from the late
introduction of plank and stronger materials, are now laid aside.” Thus
Pliny takes notice of the “_naves papyraceas armamentaque Nili_,” “ships
made of papyrus, and the equipments of the Nile;” and he observes, “_ex
ipsâ quidem papyro navigia texunt_,” “of the papyrus itself they
construct sailing vessels.” Herodotus and Diodorus have recorded the
same fact; and among the poets, Lucan, “_Conseritur bibulâ Memphitis
cymba papyro_,” “the Memphian” or Egyptian boat is made of the thirsty
papyrus; where the epithet _bibulâ_, “drinking,” “soaking,” “thirsty,”
is particularly remarkable, as corresponding with great exactness to the
nature of the plant, and to its Hebrew name, which signifies _to soak_
or _drink up_. These vegetables require much water for their growth;
when, therefore, the river on whose banks they grew was reduced, they
perished sooner than other plants. This explains Job viii, 11, where the
circumstance is referred to as an image of transient prosperity: “Can
the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in its greenness, and not
cut down, it withereth before any other herb.”
BURIAL, the interment of a deceased person; an office held so sacred,
that they who neglected it have in all nations been held in abhorrence.
As soon as the last breath had fled, the nearest relation, or the
dearest friend, gave the lifeless body the parting kiss, the last
farewell and sign of affection to the departed relative. This was a
custom of immemorial antiquity; for the patriarch Jacob had no sooner
yielded up his spirit, than his beloved Joseph, claiming for once the
right of the first-born, “fell upon his face and kissed him.” It is
probable he first closed his eyes, as God had promised he should do:
“Joseph shall put his hands upon thine eyes.” The parting kiss being
given, the company rent their clothes, which was a custom of great
antiquity, and the highest expression of grief in the primitive ages.
This ceremony was never omitted by the Hebrews when any mournful event
happened, and was performed in the following manner: they took a knife,
and holding the blade downward, gave the upper garment a cut in the
right side, and rent it a hand’s breadth. For very near relations, all
the garments are rent on the right side. After closing the eyes, the
next care was to bind up the face, which it was no more lawful to
behold. The next care of surviving friends was to wash the body,
probably, that the ointments and perfumes with which it was to be
wrapped up, might enter more easily into the pores, when opened by warm
water. This ablution, which was always esteemed an act of great charity
and devotion, was performed by women. Thus the body of Dorcas was
washed, and laid in an upper room, till the arrival of the Apostle
Peter, in the hope that his prayers might restore her to life. After the
body was washed, it was shrouded, and swathed with a linen cloth,
although in most places, they only put on a pair of drawers and a white
tunic; and the head was bound about with a napkin. Such were the napkin
and grave clothes in which the Saviour was buried.
2. The body was sometimes embalmed, which was performed by the Egyptians
after the following method: the brain was removed with a bent iron, and
the vacuity filled up with medicaments; the bowels were also drawn out,
and the trunk being stuffed with myrrh, cassia, and other spices, except
frankincense, which were proper to exsiccate the humours, it was pickled
in nitre, in which it lay for seventy days. After this period, it was
wrapped in bandages of fine linen and gums, to make it adhere; and was
then delivered to the relations of the deceased entire; all its
features, and the very hairs of the eyelids, being preserved. In this
manner were the kings of Judah embalmed for many ages. But when the
funeral obsequies were not long delayed, they used another kind of
embalming. They wrapped up the body with sweet spices and odours,
without extracting the brain, or removing the bowels. This is the way in
which it was proposed to embalm the lifeless body of our Saviour; which
was prevented by his resurrection. The meaner sort of people seem to
have been interred in their grave clothes, without a coffin. In this
manner was the sacred body of our Lord committed to the tomb. The body
was sometimes placed upon a bier, which bore some resemblance to a
coffin or bed, in order to be carried out to burial. Upon one of these
was carried forth the widow’s son of Nain, whom our compassionate Lord
raised to life, and restored to his mother. We are informed in the
history of the kings of Judah, that, Asa being dead, they laid him in
the bed, or bier, which was filled with sweet odours. Josephus, the
Jewish historian, describing the funeral of Herod the Great, says, His
bed was adorned with precious stones; his body rested under a purple
covering; he had a diadem and a crown of gold upon his head, a sceptre
in his hand; and all his house followed the bed. The bier used by the
Turks at Aleppo is a kind of coffin, much in the form of ours, only the
lid rises with a ledge in the middle.
3. The Israelites committed the dead to their native dust; and from the
Egyptians, probably, borrowed the practice of burning many spices at
their funerals. “They buried Asa in his own sepulchres, which he made
for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was
filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices, prepared by the
apothecaries’ art; and they made a very great burning for him,” 2 Chron.
xvi, 14. Thus the Old Testament historian entirely justifies the account
which the Evangelist gives, of the quantity of spices with which the
sacred body of Christ was swathed. The Jews object to the quantity used
on that occasion, as unnecessarily profuse, and even incredible; but it
appears from their own writings, that spices were used at such times in
great abundance. In the Talmud it is said, that no less than eighty
pounds of spices were consumed at the funeral of rabbi Gamaliel the
elder. And at the funeral of Herod, if we may believe the account of
their most celebrated historian, the procession was followed by five
hundred of his domestics carrying spices. Why then should it be reckoned
incredible, that Nicodemus brought of myrrh and aloes about a hundred
pounds’ weight, to embalm the body of Jesus?
4. The funeral procession was attended by professional mourners,
eminently skilled in the art of lamentation, whom the friends and
relations of the deceased hired, to assist them in expressing their
sorrow. They began the ceremony with the stridulous voices of old women,
who strove, by their doleful modulations, to extort grief from those
that were present. The children in the streets through which they
passed, often suspended their sports, to imitate the sounds, and joined
with equal sincerity in the lamentations. “But whereunto shall I liken
this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and
calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have mourned unto you, and ye
have not lamented,” Matt. ix, 17. Music was afterward introduced to aid
the voices of the mourners: the trumpet was used at the funerals of the
great, and the small pipe or flute for those of meaner condition. Hired
mourners were in use among the Greeks as early as the Trojan war, and
probably in ages long before; for in Homer, a choir of mourners were
planted around the couch on which the body of Hector was laid out, who
sung his funeral dirge with many sighs and tears:--
Ὁι δ’ ἐπεὶ ἐισάγαγον κλυτὰ δώματα, τὸν μὲν ἔπειτα
Τρητοῖς ἐν λεχέεσσι θέσαν, ϖαρὰ δ’ εἷσαν ἀοιδοὺς,
Θρήνων ἐξάρχȣς. κ. τ. λ. _Il._ lib. xxiv, l. 720.
“A melancholy choir attend around,
With plaintive sighs and music’s solemn sound;
Alternately they sing, alternate flow
The obedient tears, melodious in their wo.” POPE.
In Egypt, the lower class of people call in women who play on the tabor;
and whose business it is, like the hired mourners in other countries, to
sing elegiac airs to the sound of that instrument, which they accompany
with the most frightful distortions of their limbs. These women attend
the corpse to the grave, intermixed with the female relations and
friends of the deceased, who commonly have their hair in the utmost
disorder; their heads covered with dust; their faces daubed with indigo,
or at least rubbed with mud; and howling like maniacs. Such were the
minstrels whom our Lord found in the house of Jairus, making so great a
noise round the bed on which the dead body of his daughter lay. The
noise and tumult of these retained mourners, and the other attendants,
appear to have begun immediately after the person expired. It is evident
that this sort of mourning and lamentation was a kind of art among the
Jews: “Wailing shall be in the streets; and they shall call such as are
skilful of lamentation to wail,” Amos v, 16. Mourners are still hired at
the obsequies of Hindoos and Mohammedans, as in former times. To the
dreadful noise and tumult of the hired mourners, the following passage
of Jeremiah indisputably refers; and shows the custom to be derived from
a very remote antiquity: “Call for the mourning women that they may
come; and send for cunning women, that they may come, and let them make
haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with
tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters,” Jer. ix, 17. The funeral
processions of the Jews in Barbary are conducted nearly in the same
manner as those in Syria. The corpse is borne by four to the place of
burial: in the first rank march the priests, next to them the kindred of
the deceased; after whom come those that are invited to the funeral; and
all singing in a sort of plain song, the forty-ninth Psalm. Hence the
Prophet, Amos viii, 3, warns his people that public calamities were
approaching, so numerous and severe, as should make them forget the
usual rites of burial, and even to sing one of the songs of Zion over
the dust of a departed relative. This appears to be confirmed by a
prediction in the eighth chapter: “And the songs of the temple shall be
howlings in that day, saith the Lord God; there shall be many dead
bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with _silence_;” they
shall have none to lament and bewail; none to blow the funeral trump or
touch the pipe and tabor; none to sing the plaintive dirge, or express
their hope of a blessed resurrection, in the strains of inspiration. All
shall be silent despair. See SEPULCHRES.
BUSH. סנה. This word occurs in Exod. iii, 2, 4, and Deut. xxxiii, 16, as
the name of the bush in which God appeared to Moses. If it be the χιονὸς
mentioned by Dioscorides, it is the white thorn. Celsius calls it the
_rubus fructicosus_. The number of these bushes in this region seems to
have given the name to the mountain Sinai. The word נהללים, found only
in Isa. vii, 19, and there rendered “bushes,” means _fruitful pastures_.
BUTTER is taken in Scripture, as it has been almost perpetually in the
east, for cream or liquid butter, Prov. xxx, 33; 2 Sam. xvii, 29. The
ancient way of making butter in Arabia and Palestine was probably nearly
the same as is still practised by the Bedoween Arabs, and Moors in
Barbary, and which is thus described by Dr. Shaw: “Their method of
making butter is by putting the milk or cream into a goat’s skin turned
inside out, which they suspend from one side of the tent to the other;
and then pressing it to and fro in one uniform direction, they quickly
separate the unctious and wheyey parts. In the Levant they tread upon
the skin with their feet, which produces the same effect.” The last
method of separating the butter from the milk, perhaps may throw light
upon a passage in Job of some difficulty: “When I washed my steps with
butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil,” Job xxxi, 6. The
method of making butter in the east illustrates the conduct of Jael, the
wife of Heber, described in the book of Judges: “And Sisera said unto
her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty:
and she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink and covered him.” In
the Song of Deborah, the statement is repeated: “He asked water, and she
gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish,” Judges iv,
19; v, 25. The word חמאה, which our translators rendered _butter_,
properly signifies _cream_; which is undoubtedly the meaning of it in
this passage: for Sisera complained of thirst, and asked a little water
to quench it;--a purpose to which butter is but little adapted. Mr.
Harmer, indeed, urges the same objection to cream, which, he contends,
few people would think a very proper beverage for one that was extremely
thirsty; and concludes that it must have been butter-milk which Jael,
who had just been churning, gave to Sisera. But the opinion of Dr.
Russel is preferable,--that the _hemah_ of the Scriptures is probably
the same as the _haymak_ of the Arabs, which is not, as Harmer supposed,
simple cream, but cream produced by simmering fresh sheep’s milk for
some hours over a slow fire. It could not be butter newly churned, which
Jael presented to Sisera, because the Arab butter is apt to be foul, and
is commonly passed through a strainer before it is used: and Russel
declares, he never saw butter offered to a stranger, but always
_haymak_; nor did he ever observe the orientals drink butter-milk, but
always _leban_, which is coagulated sour milk, diluted with water. It
was _leban_, therefore, which Pococke mistook for butter-milk, with
which the Arabs treated him in the Holy Land. A similar conclusion may
be drawn concerning the butter and milk which the wife of Heber
presented to Sisera: they were forced cream or _haymak_, and _leban_, or
coagulated sour milk, diluted with water, which is a common and
refreshing beverage in those sultry regions. In Isaiah vii, 15, butter
and honey are mentioned as food which, in Egypt and other places in the
east, is in use to this day. The butter and honey are mixed, and the
bread is then dipped in it.
BYSSUS. By this word we generally understand that fine Egyptian linen of
which the priests’ tunics were made. But we must distinguish three kinds
of commodities, which are generally comprehended under the name of
_linen_: 1. The Hebrew בד, which signifies _linen_: 2. שש, which
signifies _cotton_: 3. בוץ, which is commonly called _bussus_, and is
the silk growing from a certain shell fish, called _pinna_. We do not
find the name _butz_ in the text of Moses, though the Greek and Latin
use the word _byssus_, to signify the fine linen of certain habits
belonging to the priests. The word _butz_ occurs only in 1 Chron. xv,
27; Ezek. xxvii, 16; Esther i, 6. In the Chronicles we see David dressed
in a mantle of _butz_, with the singers and Levites. Solomon used _butz_
in the veils of the temple and sanctuary. Ahasuerus’s tents were upheld
by cords of _butz_; and Mordecai was clothed with a mantle of purple and
_butz_, when king Ahasuerus honoured him with the first employment in
his kingdom. Lastly, it is observed that there was a manufacture of
_butz_ in the city of Beersheba, in Palestine. This _butz_ must have
been different from common linen, since in the same place where it is
said, David wore a mantle of byssus, we read likewise that he had on a
linen ephod.
CAB, or KAB, a Hebrew measure, containing three pints one-third of our
wine measure, or two pints five-sixths of our corn measure.
CABBALA, a mysterious kind of science, delivered to the ancient Jews, as
they pretend, by revelation, and transmitted by oral tradition to those
of our times; serving for the interpretation of the books both of nature
and Scripture. The word is variously written, as _Cabala_, _Caballa_,
_Kabbala_, _Kabala_, _Cabalistica_, _Ars Cabala_, and _Gaballa_. It is
originally Hebrew, קבלה, and properly signifies _reception_; formed from
the verb קבל, _to receive by tradition_, or _from father to son_;
especially in the Chaldee and Rabbinical Hebrew. Cabbala, then,
primarily denotes any sentiment, opinion, usage, or explication of
Scripture, transmitted from father to son. In this sense the word
_cabbala_ is not only applied to the whole art, but also to each
operation performed according to the rules of that art. Thus it is,
rabbi Jacob Ben Ascher, surnamed Baal-Hatturim, is said to have compiled
most of the cabbalas invented on the books of Moses before his time. As
to the origin of the cabbala, the Jews relate many marvellous tales.
They derive the mysteries contained in it from Adam; and assert, that
whilst the first man was in paradise, the angel Raphael brought him a
book from heaven, which contained the doctrines of heavenly wisdom; and
that when Adam received this book, angels came down from heaven to learn
its contents; but that he refused to admit them to the knowledge of
sacred things, intrusted to himself alone: that, after the fall, this
book was taken back into heaven; that, after many prayers and tears, God
restored it to Adam; and that it passed from Adam to Seth. The Jewish
fables farther relate, that the book being lost, and the mysteries
contained in it almost forgotten, in the degenerate age preceding the
flood, they were restored by special revelation to Abraham, who
transmitted them to writing in the book “Jezirah;” and that the
revelation was renewed to Moses, who received a traditionary and
mystical, as well as a written and preceptive, law from God.
Accordingly, the Jews believe that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, not
only the law, but also the explication of that law; and that Moses,
after his coming down, retiring to his tent, rehearsed to Aaron both the
one and the other. When he had done, the sons of Aaron, Eleazar and
Ithamar, were introduced to a second rehearsal. This being over, the
seventy elders that composed the sanhedrim were admitted; and, lastly,
the people, as many as pleased; to all of whom Moses again repeated both
the law and explanation, as he received them from God: so that Aaron
heard it four times, his sons thrice, the elders twice, and the people
once. Now, of the two things which Moses taught them, the laws and the
explanation, only the first were committed to writing; which is what we
have in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. As to the second, or the
explication of those laws, they were contented to impress it well in
their memory, to teach it their children; they to theirs, &c. Hence the
first part they call simply the law, or the written law; the second, the
oral law, or cabbala. Such is the original notion of the cabbala.
2. The cabbala being again lost amidst the calamities of the Babylonish
captivity, was once more revealed to Esdras; and it is said to have been
preserved in Egypt, and transmitted to posterity through the hands of
Simeon Ben Setach, Elkanah, Akibha, Simeon Ben Jochai, and others. The
only warrantable inference from these accounts, which bear the obvious
marks of fiction, is, that the cabbalistic doctrine obtained early
credit among the Jews as a part of their sacred tradition, and was
transmitted, under this notion, by the Jews in Egypt to their brethren
in Palestine. Under the sanction of ancient names, many fictitious
writings were produced, which greatly contributed to the spreading of
this mystical system. Among these were “Sepher Happeliah,” or the book
of wonders; “Sepher Hakkaneh,” or the book of the pen; and “Sepher
Habbahir,” or the book of light. The first unfolds many doctrines said
to have been delivered by Elias to the rabbi Elkanah; the second
contains mystical commentaries on the divine commands; and the third
illustrates the most sublime mysteries. Among the profound doctors who,
beside the study of tradition, cultivated with great industry the
cabbalistic philosophy, the most celebrated persons are the rabbis
Akibba, who lived soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Simeon
Ben Jochai, who flourished in the second century. To the former is
ascribed the book entitled “Jezirah,” concerning the creation; and to
the latter, the book “Sohar,” or brightness; and these are the principal
sources from which we derive our knowledge of the cabbala.