continues to be practised among the Jews of Barbary to this day. When
they return from the grave to the house of the deceased, the chief
mourner receives them with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth, in
imitation of the manner in which the face of the dead is covered; and by
this the mourner is said to testify that he was ready to die for his
friend. Muffled in this way, the mourner goes for seven days, during
which the rest of his friends come twice every twenty-four hours to pray
with him. This allusion is perhaps involved in the charge which Ezekiel
received when his wife died, to abstain from the customary forms of
mourning: “Forbear to cry; make no mourning for the dead; bind the tire
of thy head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not
thy lips, and eat not the bread of men,” Ezekiel xxiv, 17.
4. Sitting on the ground was a posture which denoted severe distress.
Thus the prophet represents the elders of Israel, after the destruction
of Jerusalem, and the captivity of those whom the sword had spared: “The
elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence;
they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves
with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the
ground,” Lam. ii, 10. Judea is represented on several coins of Vespasian
and Titus, as a solitary female in this very posture of sorrow and
captivity sitting upon the ground. It is remarkable, that we find Judea
represented as a sorrowful woman sitting on the ground, in a passage of
the prophet, where the same calamity which was recorded on the medals of
these Roman emperors is foretold: “And she being desolate shall sit upon
the ground,” Isaiah iii, 26.
5. Chardin informs us that when the king of Persia dies, his physicians
and astrologers lose their places, and are excluded from the court; the
first, because they could not cure their sovereign, and the last,
because they did not give previous notice of his death. This whimsical
custom he supposes has descended to modern times from a very remote
antiquity; and to have been the true reason that Daniel was absent when
Belshazzar saw the hand writing his doom on the wall. If the conjecture
of that intelligent traveller be well founded, the venerable prophet had
been forced by the established etiquette of the court to retire from the
management of public affairs at the death of Nebuchadnezzar; and had
remained in a private station for twenty-three years, neglected or
forgotten, till the awful occurrence of that memorable night rendered
his assistance necessary, and brought him again into public notice. This
accounts in a very satisfactory manner, as well for Belshazzar’s
ignorance of Daniel, as for the recollection of Nitocris, the
queen-mother, who had long known his character and abilities during the
reign of her husband. This solution of the difficulty is at least
ingenious.
6. It was a custom among the Jews to visit the sepulchres of their
deceased friends three days; for so long they supposed their spirits
hovered about them; but when once they perceived their visage begin to
change, as it would in that time in those warm countries, all hopes of a
return to life were then at an end. But it appears from an incident in
the narrative of the raising of Lazarus, that in Judea they were
accustomed to visit the graves of their deceased relations after the
third day, merely to lament their loss, and give vent to their grief. If
this had not been a common practice, the people that came to comfort the
sisters of Lazarus would not so readily have concluded, when Mary, on
the fourth day, went hastily out to meet her Saviour, “She goeth to the
grave to weep there.” The Turkish women continue to follow this custom:
they go before sunrising on Friday, the stated day of their worship, to
the grave of the deceased, where, with many tears and lamentations, they
sprinkle their monuments with water and flowers.
DEAD SEA. This was anciently called the _Sea of the Plain_, Deut. iii,
17; iv, 49, from its situation in the great hollow or plain of the
Jordan; the _Salt Sea_, Deut. iii, 17; Joshua xv, 5, from the extreme
saltness of its waters; and the _East Sea_, Ezek. xlvii, 18; Joel ii,
20, from its situation relative to Judea, and in contradistinction to
the _West Sea_, or Mediterranean. It is likewise called by Josephus, and
by the Greek and Latin writers generally, _Lacus Asphaltites_, from the
bitumen found in it; and the _Dead Sea_, its more frequent modern
appellation, from a tradition, commonly though erroneously received,
that no living creature could exist in its saline and sulphureous
waters. It is at present known in Syria by the names of _Almotanah_ and
_Bahar Loth_: and occupies what may be considered as the southern
extremity of the vale of Jordan; forming, in that direction, the western
boundary to the Holy Land. The Dead Sea is about seventy miles in
length, and twenty in breadth at its broadest part; having, like the
Caspian, no visible communication with the ocean. Its depth seems to be
altogether unknown; nor does it appear that a boat has ever navigated
its surface. Toward its southern extremity, however, in a contracted
part of the lake, is a ford, about six miles over, made use of by the
Arabs: in the middle of which they report the water to be warm;
indicating the presence of warm springs beneath. In general, toward the
shore, it is shallow; and rises and falls with the seasons, and the
quantity of water carried into it by seven streams, which fall into this
their common receptacle, the chief of which is the Jordan.
The water now covering these ruins occupies what was formerly the vale
of Siddim; a rich and fruitful valley, in which stood the five cities,
called the cities of the plain, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim,
and Bela or Zoar: the four first of which were destroyed, while the
latter, being “a little city,” was preserved at the intercession of Lot;
to which he fled for refuge from the impending catastrophe, and where he
remained in safety during its accomplishment.
The specific gravity of the waters of the Dead Sea is supposed to have
been much exaggerated by the ancient writers, but their statements are
now proved to be by no means very wide of the truth. Pliny says, that no
living bodies would sink in it; and Strabo, that persons who went into
it were borne up to their middle. Van Egmont and Heyman state, that, on
swimming to some distance from the shore, they found themselves, to
their great surprise, lifted up by the water. “When I had swam to some
distance,” says the latter, “I endeavoured to sink to the bottom, but
could not; for the water kept me continually up, and would certainly
have thrown me upon my face, had I not put forth all the strength I was
master of, to keep myself in a perpendicular posture; so that I walked
in the sea as if I had trod on firm ground, without having occasion to
make any of the motions necessary in treading fresh water; and when I
was swimming, I was obliged to keep my legs the greatest part of the
time out of the water. My fellow traveller was agreeably surprised to
find that he could swim here, having never learned. But this proceeded
from the gravity of the water, as this certainly does from the
extraordinary quantity of salt in it.” Mr. Joliffe says, he found it
very little more buoyant than other seas, but he did not go out of his
depth. “The descent of the beach,” he says, “is so gently gradual, that
I must have waded above a hundred yards to get completely out of my
depth, and the impatience of the Arabians would not allow of time
sufficient for this.” Captain Mangles says: “The water is as bitter and
as buoyant as the people have reported. Those of our party who could not
swim, floated on its surface like corks. On dipping the head in, the
eyes smarted dreadfully.” With regard to the agents employed in this
catastrophe, there might seem reason to suppose that volcanic phenomena
had some share in producing it; but Chateaubriand’s remark is deserving
of attention. “I cannot,” he says, “coincide in opinion with those who
suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have seen
Vesuvius, Solfatara, Monte Nuovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the
Azores, the Mamalif opposite to Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of
Auvergne; and remarked in all of them the same characters; that is to
say, mountains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which
exhibited incontestable proofs of the agency of fire.” After noticing
the very different shape and position of the Dead Sea, he adds:
“Bitumen, warm springs, and phosphoric stones are found, it is true, in
the mountains of Arabia; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur,
and asphaltos is not sufficient to attest the anterior existence of a
volcano.” The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt the idea of Professors
Michaëlis and Busching, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built upon a mine
of bitumen; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the
cities sunk in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brun
ingeniously suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built
of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in flames by the fire of
heaven. We learn from the Mosaic account, that the Vale of Siddim, which
is now occupied by the Dead Sea, was full of “slime pits,” or pits of
bitumen. Pococke says: “It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the
water, and comes ashore after windy weather; the Arabs gather it up, and
it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines,
and is thought to have been a very great ingredient in the bitumen used
in embalming the bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths,
and has an ill smell when burnt. It is probable that there are
subterraneous fires, that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the
sea, where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the
motion of the water occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable,
that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three
leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns only to a white
stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch;
so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one
part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and that this
bitumen boils up out of it.” To give force to this last conjecture,
however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whether bitumen is capable
of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of
fire. The stone in question is the black feited limestone, used at
Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a
charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is
owing to a strong impregnation of sulphuretted hydrogen. If the
buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with
quarries of which the neighbouring mountains abound, they would be
easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The Scriptural account,
however, is explicit, that “the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from heaven;” which we may safely interpret as
implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is
evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which
seems referable to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In
perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very
materials, as it were, of this awful visitation still at hand in the
neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the
agency of thunder storms, directed by the hand of offended Heaven.
Captains Irby and Mangles collected, on the southern coast, lumps of
nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small
hen’s egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought
down by the rain: “their great deposit must be sought for,” they say,
“in the cliff.” These cliffs then were probably swept by the lightnings,
and their flaming masses poured in a deluge of fire upon the plain.
DEBORAH, a prophetess, wife of Lapidoth, judged the Israelites, and
dwelt under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, Judges iv, 4, 5. She
sent for Barak, directed him to attack Sisera, and, in the name of God,
promised him victory; but Barak refusing to go, unless she went with
him, she told him, that the honour of this expedition would be given to
a woman, and not to him. After the victory, Deborah and Barak sung a
fine thanksgiving song, the composition probably of Deborah alone, which
is preserved, Judges v.
DEBTS. In nothing, perhaps, do the Israelitish laws deviate so far from
our own, as in regard to matters of debt. Imprisonment was unknown among
the Hebrews, who were equally free from those long and expensive modes
of procedure with which we are acquainted, for the recovery of debts.
Their laws in this respect were simple, but efficient. Where pledges
were lodged with a creditor for the payment of a debt, which was not
discharged, the creditor was allowed to appropriate the pledge to his
own benefit, without any interposition of a magistrate, and to keep it
as rightfully as if it had been bought with the sum which had been lent
for it. But, beside the pledge, every Israelite had various pieces of
property, on which execution for debt might readily be made; as (1.) His
hereditary land, the produce of which might be attached till the year of
jubilee: (2.) His houses, which, with the sole exception of those of the
Levites, might be sold in perpetuity, Lev. xxv, 29, 30: (3.) His cattle,
household furniture, and ornaments, appear also liable to be taken in
execution. See Job xxiv, 3; Proverbs xxii, 27. From Deut. xv, 1–11, we
see that no debt could be exacted from a poor man in the seventh year;
because the land lying fallow, he had no income whence to pay it: (4.)
The person of the debtor, who might be sold, along with his wife and
children, if he had any. See Lev. xxv, 39; Job xxiv, 9; 2 Kings iv, 1;
Isaiah l, 1; Nehemiah v. We have no intimation, in the writings of
Moses, that suretyship was practised among the Hebrews in cases of debt.
In the Proverbs of Solomon, however, there are many admonitions
respecting it. Where this warranty was given, the surety was treated
with the same severity as if he had been the actual debtor; and if he
could not pay, his very bed might be taken from under him, Prov. xxii,
27. There is a reference to the custom observed in contracting this
obligation in Prov. xvii, 18: “A man void of understanding striketh
hands,” &c; and also in Prov. xxii, 26: “Be not thou one of them that
strike hands,” &c. It is to be observed that the hand was given, not to
the creditor, but to the debtor, in the creditor’s presence. By this act
the surety intimated that he became in a legal sense one with the
debtor, and rendered himself liable to pay the debt.
2. We have above noticed the practice of lending on pledge; but as this
was liable to considerable abuse, the following judicial regulations
were adopted: (1.) The creditor was not allowed to enter the house of
the debtor to fetch the pledge, but was obliged to stand without the
door, and wait till it was brought to him, Deut. xxiv, 10, 11. This law
was wisely designed to restrain avaricious and unprincipled persons from
taking advantage of their poor brethren in choosing their own pledges.
(2.) The upper garment, which served by night for a blanket, Exod. xxii,
25, 26; Deut. xxiv, 12, 13, and mills and millstones, if taken in
pledge, were to be restored to the owner before sunset. The reason of
this law was, that these articles were indispensable to the comfortable
subsistence of the poor; and for the same reason, it is likely that it
extended to all necessary utensils. Such a restoration was no loss to
the creditor; for he had it in his power at last, by the aid of summary
justice, to lay hold of the whole property of the debtor; and if he had
none, of his person: and, in the event of non-payment, as before stated,
to take him for a bond slave.
DECALOGUE, the ten principal commandments, Exod. xx, 1, &c, from the
Greek δεκὰ _ten_, and λόγοι _words_. The Jews call these precepts, _the
ten words_.
DECAPOLIS, a country in Palestine, so called, because it contained ten
principal cities; some situated on the west, and some on the east side
of Jordan, Matt. iv, 25; Mark v, 20.
DEDICATION, a religious ceremony, whereby any person or thing was set
apart to the service of God, and the purposes of religion. Dedications
of persons, temples, and houses, were frequent among the Jews. See
CONSECRATION.
DEFILEMENT. Under the law, many were those blemishes of person and
conduct, which were considered as defilements: some were voluntary,
others involuntary; some were inevitable, and the effect of nature
itself, others arose from personal transgression. Under the Gospel,
defilements are those of the heart, of the mind, the temper, and
conduct. The ceremonial uncleannesses of the law are superseded as
religious rites; though many of them claim attention as usages of
health, decency, and civility.
DEGREES. _Psalms of Degrees_ is a name given to fifteen psalms, from the
cxx, to the cxxxiv, inclusive. The Hebrew text calls them _a song of
ascents_. Junius and Tremellius translate the Hebrew _a song of
excellences, or an excellent song_, from the excellent matter they
contain. Some call them _psalms of elevation_, because they were sung
with an exalted voice, or because at every psalm the voice was raised;
but the translation of _psalms of degrees_ has more generally obtained.
Some think that they were called psalms of degrees, because they were
sung upon the fifteen steps of the temple; but they are not agreed where
these steps were. Others are of opinion, that they were so denominated,
because sung in a gallery, which was in the court of Israel, where the
Levites sometimes read the law. Calmet thinks, that they were called
songs of degrees, or of ascent, because they were composed on occasion
of the deliverance of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon, either to
implore this deliverance from God, or to return thanks for it after it
had been obtained; and that the Hebrews used the term _to go up_, when
they spoke of their journeying from Babylon to Jerusalem. Others are of
opinion, that these psalms were sung during the time of service, while
the flesh, &c, were consuming on the altar, and while the fume and smoke
_ascended_ toward heaven; and that the title _Psalms of Ascent_ seems to
favour this supposition. The point is involved in entire obscurity; and,
after all, the title of these Psalms may be only a musical direction to
the temple choir.
DEISTS. This term appears to have had an honourable origin, being of the
same import as _Theists_, designating those who believe in the existence
of a supreme intelligent cause, in opposition to the Epicureans, and
other Atheistical philosophers. The name, in modern times, is said to
have been first assumed about the middle of the sixteenth century, by
some persons on the continent, in order to avoid the imputation of
Atheism. Peter Viret, a divine of that century, mentions it as a new
name assumed by those who rejected Christianity. Lord Edw. Herbert,
baron of Cherbury, in the seventeenth century, has been regarded as the
first Deistical writer in this country, or at least, the first who
reduced Deism to a system; affirming the sufficiency of reason and
natural religion, and rejecting divine revelation as unnecessary and
superfluous. His system, however, embraced these five articles:--1. The
being of God. 2. That he is to be worshipped. 3. That piety and moral
virtue are the chief parts of worship. 4. That God will pardon our
faults on repentance. And, 5. That there is a future state of rewards
and punishment. Some have divided all Deists into two classes--those who
admit a future state, and those who deny it. But Dr. S. Clarke, taking
the term in the most extensive sense, arranges them under four
classes:--1. Those who admit a Supreme Being, but deny that he concerns
himself with the conduct or affairs of men; maintaining, with Lucretius,
that God
“Ne’er smiles at good, nor frowns at wicked, deeds.”
2. Those who admit not only the being but the providence of God, with
respect to the natural world; but who allow no difference between moral
good and evil, nor that God takes any notice of our moral conduct. 3.
Such as believe in the natural attributes of God, and his all-governing
providence; yet deny the immortality of the soul, or any future state.
4. Such as admit the existence of God, his providence, and the
obligations of natural religion; but so far only as these things are
discoverable by the light of nature, without any divine revelation. Some
of the Deists have attempted to overthrow the Christian dispensation, by
opposing to it what they call the absolute perfection of natural
religion. Others, as Blount, Collins, and Morgan, have endeavoured to
gain the same purpose, by attacking particular parts of the Christian
scheme, by explaining away the literal sense and meaning of certain
passages, or by placing one portion of the sacred canon in opposition to
the other. A third class, wherein we meet with the names of Shaftesbury
and Bolingbroke, advancing farther in their progress, expunge from their
creed the doctrine of future existence, deny or controvert all the moral
perfections of the Deity, and wholly reject the Scriptures.
The Deists of the present day are distinguished by their zealous efforts
to diffuse the principles of infidelity among the common people. Hume,
Bolingbroke, and Gibbon, addressed themselves solely to the more
polished classes of the community; but of late the writings of Paine,
Carlile, and others, have diffused infidelity among the lower orders of
society, and clothed it in the dress of vulgar ridicule, the more
effectually to destroy in the common people all reverence for sacred
things. Among the disciples of this school, Deism has led to the most
disgusting Atheism. Thus “evil men and seducers wax worse and worse.”
DELUGE signifies, in general, any great inundation; but more
particularly that universal flood by which the whole inhabitants of this
globe were destroyed, except Noah and his family. According to the most
approved systems of chronology, this remarkable event happened in the
year 1656 after the creation, or about 2348 before the Christian æra. Of
so general a calamity, from which only a single family of all who lived
then on the face of the earth was preserved, we might naturally expect
to find some memorials in the traditionary records of Pagan history, as
well as in the sacred volume, where its peculiar cause, and the
circumstances which attended it, are so distinctly and so fully related.
Its magnitude and singularity could scarcely fail to make an indelible
impression on the minds of the survivors, which would be communicated
from them to their children, and would not be easily effaced from the
traditions even of their latest posterity. A deficiency in such traces
of this awful event, though perhaps it might not serve entirely to
invalidate our belief of its reality, would certainly tend considerably
to weaken its claim to credibility; it being scarcely probable that the
knowledge of it should be utterly lost to the rest of the world, and
confined to the documents of the Jewish nation alone. What we might
reasonably expect has, accordingly, been actually and completely
realized. The evidence which has been brought from almost every quarter
of the world to bear upon the reality of this event, is of the most
conclusive and irresistible kind; and every investigation, whether
etymological or historical, which has been made concerning Heathen rites
and traditions, has constantly added to its force, no less than to its
extent.