and are the most conspicuous amidst the wide scene of general
desolation, and while each of them was in like manner particularized in
the visions of the prophet, they yet formed but a small number of the
cities of Moab; and the rest are also, in similar verification of the
prophecies, desolate, without any to dwell therein.” None of the ancient
cities of Moab now remain as tenanted by men. Kerek, which neither bears
any resemblance in name to any of the cities of Moab which are mentioned
as existing in the time of the Israelites, nor possesses any monuments
which denote a very remote antiquity, is the only nominal town in the
whole country, and, in the words of Seetzen, who visited it, in its
present ruined state it can only be called a hamlet; and the houses have
only one floor.” But the most populous and fertile province in Europe,
especially any situated in the interior of a country like Moab, is not
covered so thickly with towns as Moab is plentiful in ruins, deserted
and desolate though now it be. Burckhardt enumerates about fifty ruined
sites within its boundaries, many of them extensive. In general they are
a broken down and undistinguishable mass of ruins; and many of them have
not been closely inspected. But, in some instances, there are the
remains of temples, sepulchral monuments; the ruins of edifices
constructed of very large stones, in one of which buildings some of the
stones are twenty feet in length, and so broad that one constitutes the
thickness of the wall; traces of hanging gardens; entire columns lying
on the ground, three feet in diameter, and fragments of smaller columns;
and many cisterns out of the rock. When the towns of Moab existed in
their prime, and were at ease; when arrogance, and haughtiness, and
pride prevailed among them; the desolation, and total desertion and
abandonment of them all, must have utterly surpassed all human
conception. And that such numerous cities which subsisted for many ages,
some of them being built on eminences, and naturally strong; others on
plains, and surrounded by the richest soil; some situated in valleys by
the side of a plentiful stream; and others where art supplied the
deficiencies of nature, and where immense cisterns were excavated out of
the rock, and which exhibit in their ruins many monuments of ancient
prosperity, and many remains easily convertible into present utility;
should have all fled away, all met the same indiscriminate fate, and be
all desolate, without any to dwell therein,” notwithstanding all these
ancient indications of permanent durability, and their existing
facilities and inducements for becoming the habitations of men, is a
matter of just wonder in the present day. They shall cry of Moab, How is
it broken down!”
The strong contrast between the ancient and the actual state of Moab is
exemplified in the condition of the inhabitants as well as of the land;
and the coincidence between the prediction and the fact is as striking
in the one case as in the other. The days come, saith the Lord, that I
will send unto him (Moab) wanderers that shall cause him to wander, and
shall empty his vessels.” The Bedouin (wandering) Arabs are now the
chief and almost the only inhabitants of a country once studded with
cities. Traversing the country, and fixing their tents for a short time
in one place, and then decamping to another, depasturing every part
successively, and despoiling the whole land of its natural produce, they
are wanderers who have come up against it, and who keep it in a state of
perpetual desolation. They lead a wandering life; and the only
regularity they know or practise, is to act upon a systematic scheme of
spoliation. They prevent any from forming a fixed settlement who are
inclined to attempt it; for although the fruitfulness of the soil would
abundantly repay the labour of settlers, and render migration wholly
unnecessary, even if the population were increased more than tenfold;
yet the Bedouins forcibly deprive them of the means of subsistence,
compel them to search for it elsewhere, and, in the words of the
prediction, literally cause them to wander.” It may be remarked
generally of the Bedouins,” says Burckhardt, in describing their
extortions in this very country, that wherever they are the masters of
the cultivators, the latter are soon reduced to beggary by their
unceasing demands.” “O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell
in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of
the hole’s mouth.” In a general description of the condition of the
inhabitants of that extensive desert which now occupies the place of
these ancient flourishing states, Volney in plain but unmeant
illustration of this prediction, remarks, that the wretched peasants
live in perpetual dread of losing the fruit of their labours; and no
sooner have they gathered in their harvest, than they hasten to secrete
it in private places, and retire among the rocks which border on the
Dead Sea.” Toward the opposite extremity of the land of Moab, and at a
little distance from its borders, Seetzen relates, that there are many
families living in caverns;” and he actually designates them the
inhabitants of the rocks.” And at the distance of a few miles from the
ruined site of Heshbon, according to Captains Irby and Mangles, there
are many artificial caves in a large range of perpendicular cliffs, in
some of which are chambers and small sleeping apartments.” While the
cities are desolate, without any to dwell therein, the rocks are
tenanted. But whether flocks lie down in the city without any to make
them afraid, or whether men are to be found dwelling in the rocks, and
are “like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole’s
mouth,” the wonderful transition, in either case, and the close
accordance, in both, of the fact to the prediction, assuredly mark it in
characters that may be visible to the purblind mind, as the word of that
God before whom the darkness of futurity is as light, and without whom a
sparrow cannot fall unto the ground.
MOLE. This word, in our version of Lev. xi, 30, answers to the word
תנשמת, which Bochart has shown to be the cameleon; but he conjectures,
with great propriety, that חלד, translated weasel,” in the preceding
verse, is the true word for the mole. The present name of the mole in
the east is _khuld_, which is undeniably the same word as the Hebrew
_choled_. The import of the Hebrew word is, to creep into,” and the same
Syriac word implies, to creep underneath,” to creep into by burrowing;
which are well known characteristics of the mole.
MOLOCH, מלך, signifies _king_. Moloch, Molech, Milcom, or Melchom, was a
god of the Ammonites. The word _Moloch_ signifies king,” and _Melchom_
signifies their king.” Moses in several places forbids the Israelites,
under the penalty of death, to dedicate their children to Moloch, by
making them pass through the fire in honour of that god, Lev. xviii, 21;
xx, 2–5. God himself threatens to pour out his wrath against such
offenders. There is great probability that the Hebrews were addicted to
the worship of this deity, even before their coming out of Egypt; since
the Prophet Amos, v, 26, and after him St. Stephen, reproach them with
having carried in the wilderness the tabernacle of their god Moloch,
Acts vii, 43. Solomon built a temple to Moloch upon the Mount of Olives,
1 Kings xi, 7; and Manasseh a long time after imitated his impiety,
making his son pass through the fire in honour of Moloch, 2 Kings xxi,
3–6. It was chiefly in the valley of Tophet and Hinnom, east of
Jerusalem, that this idolatrous worship was paid, Jer. xix, 5, 6, &c.
Some are of opinion that they contented themselves with making their
children leap over a fire sacred to Moloch, by which they consecrated
them to some false deity: and by this lustration purified them; this
being a usual ceremony among the Heathens on other occasions. Some
believe that they made them pass through two fires opposite to each
other, for the same purpose. But the word העביר, to cause to pass
through,” and the phrase to cause to pass through the fire,” are used in
respect to human sacrifices in Deut. xii, 31; xviii, 10; 2 Kings xvi, 3;
xxi, 6; 2 Chron. xxviii, 3; xxxiii, 6. These words are not to be
considered as meaning in these instances literally to pass through, and
that alone. They are rather synonymous with שרף, _to burn_, and זבח, _to
immolate_, with which they are interchanged, as may be seen by an
examination of Jer. vii, 31; xix, 5; Ezek. xvi, 20, 21; Psalm cvi, 38.
In the later periods of the Jewish kingdom, this idol was erected in the
valley south of Jerusalem, namely, in the valley of Hinnom, and in the
part of that valley called _Tophet_, תפת, so named from the _drums_,
תפים תף, which were beaten to prevent the groans and cries of children
sacrificed from being heard, Jer. vii, 31, 32; xix, 6–14; Isaiah xxx,
33; 2 Kings xxiii, 10. The place was so abhorrent to the minds of the
more recent Jews, that they applied the name _ge hinnom_ or _gehenna_ to
the place of torments in a future life. The word _gehenna_ is used in
this way, namely, for the place of punishment beyond the grave, very
frequently in oriental writers, as far as India. There are various
sentiments about the relation that Moloch had to the other Pagan
divinities. Some believe that Moloch was the same as Saturn, to whom it
is well known that human sacrifices were offered; others think it was
the same with Mercury; others, Venus; others, Mars, or Mithra. Calmet
has endeavoured to prove that Moloch signified the sun, or the king of
heaven.
MONEY. Scripture often speaks of gold, silver, brass, of certain sums of
money, of purchases made with money, of current money, of money of a
certain weight; but we do not observe coined or stamped money till a
late period; which makes it probable that the ancient Hebrews took gold
and silver only by weight; that they only considered the purity of the
metal, and not the stamp. The most ancient commerce was conducted by
barter, or exchanging one sort of merchandise for another. One man gave
what he could spare to another, who gave him in return part of his
superabundance. Afterward, the more precious metals were used in
traffic, as a value more generally known and fixed. Lastly, they gave
this metal, by public authority, a certain mark, a certain weight, and a
certain degree of alloy, to fix its value, and to save buyers and
sellers the trouble of weighing and examining the coins. At the siege of
Troy in Homer, no reference is made to gold or silver coined; but the
value of things is estimated by the number of oxen they were worth. For
instance: they bought wine, by exchanging oxen, slaves, skins, iron, &c,
for it. When the Greeks first used money, it was only little pieces of
iron or copper, called _oboli_ or spits, of which a handful was a
drachma, says Plutarch. Herodotus thinks that the Lydians were the first
that stamped money of gold or silver, and introduced it into commerce.
Others say it was Ishon, king of Thessaly, a son of Deucalion. Others
ascribe this honour to Erichthonius; who had been educated by the
daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens: others, again, to Phidon, king of
Argos. Among the Persians it is said Darius, son of Hystaspes, first
coined golden money. Lycurgus banished gold and silver from his
commonwealth of Lacedæmon, and only allowed a rude sort of money, made
of iron. Janus, or rather the kings of Rome, made a kind of gross money
of copper, having on one side the double face of Janus, on the other the
prow of a ship. We find nothing concerning the money of the Egyptians,
Phenicians, Arabians, or Syrians, before Alexander the Great. In China,
to this day, they stamp no money of gold or silver, but only of copper.
Gold and silver pass as merchandise. If gold or silver be offered, they
take it and pay it by weight, as other goods: so that they are obliged
to cut it into pieces with shears for that purpose, and they carry a
steel yard at their girdles to weigh it.
But to return to the Hebrews. Abraham weighed out four hundred shekels
of silver, to purchase Sarah’s tomb, Genesis xxiii, 15, 16; and
Scripture observes that he paid this in current money with the
merchant.” Joseph was sold by his brethren to the Midianites for twenty
pieces (in Hebrew twenty shekels) of silver, Gen. xxxvii, 28. The
brethren of Joseph bring back with them into Egypt the money they found
in their sacks, in the same weight as before, Gen. xliii, 21. The
bracelets that Eliezer gave Rebekah weighed ten shekels, and the ear
rings two shekels, Gen. xxiv, 22. Moses ordered that the weight of five
hundred shekels of myrrh, and two hundred and fifty shekels of cinnamon,
of the weight of the sanctuary, should be taken, to make the perfume
which was to be burnt to the Lord on the golden altar, Exod. xxx, 24. He
acquaints us that the Israelites offered for the works of the tabernacle
seventy-two thousand talents of brass, Exod. xxxviii, 29. We read, in
the books of Samuel, that the weight of Absalom’s hair was two hundred
shekels of the ordinary weight, or of the king’s weight, 2 Sam. xiv, 26.
Isaiah, xlvi, 6, describes the wicked as weighing silver in a balance,
to make an idol of it; and Jeremiah, xxxii, 10, weighs seventeen pieces
of silver in a pair of scales, to pay for a field he had bought. Isaiah
says, Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore
do ye weigh money for that which is not bread?” Amos, viii, 5,
represents the merchants as encouraging one another to make the ephah
small, wherewith to sell, and the shekel great, wherewith to buy, and to
falsify the balances by deceit.
In all these passages three things only are mentioned: 1. The metal,
that is, gold or silver, and never copper, that not being used in
traffic as money. 2. The weight, a talent, a shekel, a gerah or
_obolus_, the weight of the sanctuary, and the king’s weight. 3. The
alloy (standard) of pure or fine gold and silver, and of good quality,
as received by the merchant. The impression of the coinage is not
referred to; but it is said they weighed the silver, or other
commodities, by the shekel and by the talent. This shekel, therefore,
and this talent, were not fixed and determined pieces of money, but
weights applied to things used in commerce. Hence those deceitful
balances of the merchants, who would increase the shekel, that is, would
augment the weight by which they weighed the gold and silver they were
to receive, that they might have a greater quantity than was their due;
hence the weight of the sanctuary, the standard of which was preserved
in the temple to prevent fraud; hence those prohibitions in the law,
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights,” in Hebrew, stones, a
great and a small,” Deut. xxv, 13; hence those scales that the Hebrews
wore at their girdles, Hosea xii, 7, and the Canaanites carried in their
hands, to weigh the gold and silver which they received in payment. It
is true that in the Hebrew we find Jacob bought a field for a hundred
_kesitahs_, Gen. xxxiii, 19; and that the friends of Job, after his
recovery, gave to that model of patience each a _kesitah_, and a golden
pendant for the ears, Job xlii, 11. We also find there _darics_, (in
Hebrew, _darcmonim_ or _adarcmonim_,) and _minæ_, _stateræ_, _oboli_;
but this last kind of money was foreign, and is put for other terms,
which in the Hebrew only signifies the weight of the metal. The
_kesitah_ is not well known to us: some take it for a sheep or a lamb;
others, for a kind of money, having the impression of a lamb or a sheep:
but it was more probably a purse of money. The _darcmonim_ or _darics_
are money of the kings of Persia; and it is agreed that Darius, son of
Hystaspes, first coined golden money. Ezekiel, xlv, 12, tells us that
the _mina_ makes fifty shekels: he reduces this foreign money to the
weight of the Hebrews. The _mina_ might probably be a Persian money
originally, and adopted by the Greeks and by the Hebrews. But under the
dominion of the Persians, the Hebrews were hardly at liberty to coin
money of their own, being in subjection to those princes, and very low
in their own country. They were still less able under the Chaldeans,
during the Babylonish captivity; or afterward under the Grecians, to
whom they were subject till the time of Simon Maccabæus, to whom
Antiochus Sidetes, king of Syria, granted the privilege of coining money
in Judea, 1 Mac. xv, 6. And this is the first Hebrew money, properly so
called, that we know of. There were shekels and demi-shekels, also the
third part of a shekel, and a quarter of a shekel, of silver.
The shekel of silver, or the silverling, Isa. vii, 23, originally
weighed three hundred and twenty barleycorns; but it was afterward
increased to three hundred and eighty-four barleycorns, its value, being
considered equal to four Roman denarii, was two shillings and seven
pence, or, according to Bishop Cumberland, two shillings and four pence
farthing. It is said to have had Aaron’s rod on the one side, and the
pot of manna on the other. The bekah was equal to half a shekel, Exod.
xxxviii, 26. The denarius was one-fourth of a shekel, seven pence three
farthings of our money. The gerah, or meah, Exod. xxx, 13, was the sixth
part of the denarius, or diner, and the twenty-fourth part of the
shekel. The assar, or assarion, Matt. x, 29, was the ninety-sixth part
of a shekel: its value was rather more than a farthing. The farthing,
Matt. v, 26, was in value the thirteenth part of a penny sterling. The
mite was the half of a farthing, or the twenty-sixth part of a penny
sterling. The mina, or maneh, Ezek. xlv, 12, was equal to sixty shekels,
which, taken at two shillings and seven pence, was seven pounds fifteen
shillings. The talent was fifty minas; and its value, therefore, three
hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten shillings. The gold coins were as
follows: a shekel of gold was about fourteen and a half times the value
of silver, that is, one pound seventeen shillings and five pence
halfpenny. A talent of gold consisted of three thousand shekels. The
drachma was equal to a Roman denarius, or seven pence three farthings of
our money. The didrachma, or tribute money, Matt. xvii, 24, was equal to
fifteen pence halfpenny. It is said to have been stamped with a harp on
one side, and a vine on the other. The stater, or piece of money which
Peter found in the fish’s mouth, Matt. xvii, 27, was two half shekels. A
daric, dram, 1 Chron. xxix, 7; Ezra viii, 27, was a gold coin struck by
Darius the Mede. According to Parkhurst its value was one pound five
shillings. A gold penny is stated by Lightfoot to have been equal to
twenty-five silver pence.
Hug derives a satisfactory argument for the veracity of the Gospels from
the different kinds of money mentioned in them:--The admixture of
foreign manners and constitutions proceeded through numberless
circumstances of life. Take, for example, the circulation of coin; at
one time it is Greek coin; at another, Roman; at another time ancient
Jewish. But how accurately is even this stated according to history, and
the arrangement of things! The ancient imposts which were introduced
before the Roman dominion were valued according to the Greek coinage;
for example, the taxes of the temple, the διδραχμον, Matt. xvii, 24. The
offerings were paid in these, Mark xii, 42; Luke xxi, 2. A payment which
proceeded from the temple treasury was made according to the ancient
national payment by weight, Matt. xxvi, 15; but in common business,
trade, wages, sale, &c, the assis and denarius and Roman coin were
usual, Matt. x, 29; xx, 3; Luke xii, 6; Mark xiv, 5; John xii, 5; vi, 7.
The more modern state taxes are likewise paid in the coin of the nation
which exercises at the time the greatest authority, Matthew xxii, 19;
Mark xii, 15; Luke xx, 24. Writers, who, in each little circumstance,
which otherwise would pass by unnoticed, so accurately describe the
period of time, must certainly have had a personal knowledge of it.
MONEY-CHANGERS, in the Gospels, were persons who exchanged native for
foreign coin, to enable those who came to Jerusalem from distant
countries to purchase the necessary sacrifices. In our Lord’s time they
had established themselves in the court of the temple; a profanation
which had probably grown up with the influence of Roman manners, which
allowed the _argentarii_ [money-dealers] to establish their usurious
_mensas_, tables, by the statues of the gods, even at the feet of Janus,
in the most holy places, _in porticibus Basilicarum_, or in the temples,
_pone ædem Castoris_. The following extract from Buckingham’s Travels
among the Arabs, is illustrative:--“The mosque at the time of our
passing through it was full of people, though these were not
worshippers, nor was it at either of the usual hours of public prayers.
Some of the parties were assembled to smoke, others to play at chess,
and some apparently to drive bargains of trade, but certainly none to
pray. It was, indeed, a living picture of what we might believe the
temple at Jerusalem to have been, when those who sold oxen, and sheep,
and doves, and the changers of money sitting there, were driven out by
Jesus, with a scourge of cords, and their tables overturned. It was, in
short, a place of public resort and thoroughfare, a house of
merchandise, as the temple of the Jews had become in the days of the
Messiah.”
MONK anciently denoted a person who retired from the world to give
himself up wholly to God, and to live in solitude and abstinence. The
word is derived from the Latin _monachus_, and that from the Greek
μοναχὸς, _solitary_. The original of monks seems to have been this: The
persecutions which attended the first ages of the Gospel forced some
Christians to retire from the world, and live in deserts and places more
private and unfrequented, in hopes of finding that peace and comfort
among beasts which were denied them among men; and this being the case
of some very extraordinary persons, their example gave such reputation
to retirement, that the practice was continued when the reason of its
commencement ceased. After the empire became Christian, instances of
this kind were numerous; and those whose security had obliged them to
live separately and apart became afterward united into societies. We may
also add, that the mystic theology, which gained ground toward the close
of the third century, contributed to produce the same effect, and to
drive men into solitude, for the purposes of devotion. The monks, at
least the ancient ones, were distinguished into _solitaries_,
_cœnobites_, and _sarabaites_. The first were those who lived in
places remote from all towns and habitations of men, as do still some of
the hermits. The _cœnobites_ were those who lived in community with
several others in the same house, and under the same superiors. The
_sarabaites_ were strolling monks, having no fixed rule of residence.
Those who are now called monks are _cœnobites_, who live together in
a convent or monastery, who make vows of living according to a certain
rule established by the founder, and wear a habit which distinguishes
their order. Those that are endowed, or have a fixed revenue, are most
properly called monks, _monachi_; as the Chartereux, Benedictines,
Bernardines, &c. The Mendicants, or those that beg, as the Capuchins and
Franciscans, are more properly called religious, and friars, though the
names are frequently confounded.