Bible tells us little of Balaam’s history, beyond his prophecies and his
death, yet we can collect enough to enable us to explain this allusion
of St. John. We read, that when Israel abode in Shittim, the people
began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab: and they,” that is,
the women, called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the
people did eat, and bowed down to their gods,” Num. xxv, 1, 2. But we
read farther, that when the Midianites were spoiled and Balaam slain,
Moses said of the women who were taken, Behold, these caused the
children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass
against the Lord in the matter of Peor,” Num. xxxi, 16. This, then, was
the insidious policy and advice of Balaam. When he found that he was
prohibited by God from cursing Israel, he advised Balak to seduce the
Israelites by the women of Moab, and thus to entice them to the
sacrifices of their gods. This is what St. John calls the doctrine of
Balaam,” or the wicked artifice which he taught the king of Moab: and so
he says, that in the church of Pergamos there were some who held the
doctrine of the Nicolaitans. We have therefore the testimony of St.
John, as well as of the fathers, that the lives of the Nicolaitans were
profligate and vicious; to which we may add, that they ate things
sacrificed to idols. This is expressly said of Basilides and Valentinus,
two celebrated leaders of Gnostic sects: and we perhaps are not going
too far, if we infer from St. John, that the Nicolaitans were the first
who enticed the Christians to this impious practice, and obtained from
thence the distinction of their peculiar celebrity. Their motive for
such conduct is very evident. They wished to gain proselytes to their
doctrines; and they therefore taught that it was lawful to indulge the
passions, and that there was no harm in partaking of an idol sacrifice.
This had now become the test to which Christians must submit, if they
wished to escape persecution: and the Nicolaitans sought to gain
converts by telling them that they might still believe in Jesus though
they ate of things sacrificed unto idols.” The fear of death would shake
the faith of some; others would be gained over by sensual arguments: and
thus many unhappy Christians of the Asiatic churches were found by St.
John in the ranks of the Nicolaitans.
We might wish perhaps to know at what time the sect of the Nicolaitans
began; but we cannot define it accurately. If Irenæus is correct in
saying that it preceded by a considerable time the heresy of Cerinthus,
and that the Cerinthian heresy was a principal cause of St. John writing
his Gospel, it follows, that the Nicolaitans were in existence at least
some years before the time of their being mentioned in the Revelation;
and the persecution under Domitian, which was the cause of St. John
being sent to Patmos, may have been the time which enabled the
Nicolaitans to exhibit their principles. Irenæus indeed adds, that St.
John directed his Gospel against the Nicolaitans as well as against
Cerinthus: and the comparison which is made between their doctrine and
that of Balaam, may perhaps authorize us to refer to this sect what is
said in the second Epistle of St. Peter. The whole passage contains
marked allusions to Gnostic teachers. There is another question
concerning the Nicolaitans, which has excited much discussion. It is a
question entirely of evidence and detail; and the two points to be
considered are, 1. Whether the Nicolaitans derived their name from
Nicolas of Antioch, who was one of the seven deacons: 2. Supposing this
to be the fact, whether Nicolas had disgraced himself by sensual
indulgence. Those writers who have endeavoured to clear the character of
Nicolas have generally tried also to prove that he was not the man whom
the Nicolaitans claimed as their head. But the one point may be true
without the other: and the evidence is so overwhelming, which states
that Nicolas the deacon was at least the person intended by the
Nicolaitans, that it is difficult to come to any other conclusion upon
the subject. We must not deny that some of the fathers have also charged
him with falling into vicious habits, and thus affording too true a
support to the heretics who claimed him as their leader. These writers,
however, are of a late date; and some, who are much more ancient, have
entirely acquitted him, and furnished an explanation of the calumnies
which attach to his name. We know that the Gnostics were not ashamed to
claim as their founders the Apostles, or friends of the Apostles. The
same may have been the case with Nicolas the deacon; and though we
allow, that if the Nicolaitans were distinguished as a sect some time
before the end of the century, the probability is lessened that his name
was thus abused; yet if his career was a short one, his history, like
that of the other deacons, would soon be forgotten: and the same fertile
invention, which gave rise in the two first centuries to so many
apocryphal Gospels, may also have led the Nicolaitans to give a false
character to him whose name they had assumed.
NICOPOLIS, a city of Epirus, on the gulf of Ambracia, whither, as some
think, St. Paul wrote to Titus, then in Crete, to come to him, Titus
iii, 12; but others, with greater probability, are of opinion, that the
city of Nicopolis, where St. Paul was, was not that of Epirus, but that
of Thrace, on the borders of Macedonia, near the river Nessus. Emmaus in
Palestine was also called Nicopolis by the Romans.
NIGHT. The ancient Hebrews began their artificial day in the evening,
and ended it the next evening; so that the night preceded the day,
whence it is said, evening and morning one day,” Gen. i, 5. They allowed
twelve hours to the night, and twelve to the day. Night is put for a
time of affliction and adversity: Thou hast proved mine heart, thou hast
visited me in the night, thou hast tried me,” Psalm xvii, 3; that is, by
adversity and tribulation. And the morning cometh, and also the night,”
Isaiah xxi, 12. Night is also put for the time of death: The night
cometh, wherein no man can work,” John ix, 4. Children of the day, and
children of the night, in a moral and figurative sense, denote good men
and wicked men, Christians and Gentiles. The disciples of the Son of God
are children of light: they belong to the light, they walk in the light
of truth; while the children of the night walk in the darkness of
ignorance and infidelity, and perform only works of darkness. Ye are all
the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of
the night, nor of darkness,” 1 Thess. v, 5.
NIGHT-HAWK, תחמס, Lev. xi, 16; Deut. xiv, 15. That this is a voracious
bird seems clear from the import of its name; and interpreters are
generally agreed to describe it as flying by night. On the whole, it
should seem to be the _strix orientalis_, which Hasselquist thus
describes: It is of the size of the common owl, and lodges in the large
buildings or ruins of Egypt and Syria, and sometimes even in the
dwelling houses. The Arabs settled in Egypt call it massasa,” and the
Syrians banu.” It is extremely voracious in Syria; to such a degree,
that if care is not taken to shut the windows at the coming on of night,
he enters the houses and kills the children: the women, therefore, are
very much afraid of him.
NILE, the river of Egypt, whose fountain is in the Upper Ethiopia. After
having watered several kingdoms, the Nile continues its course far into
the kingdom of Goiam. Then it winds about again, from the east to the
north. Having crossed several kingdoms and provinces, it falls into
Egypt at the cataracts, which are waterfalls over steep rocks of the
length of two hundred feet. At the bottom of these rocks the Nile
returns to its usual pace, and thus flows through the valley of Egypt.
Its channel, according to Villamont, is about a league broad. At eight
miles below Grand Cairo, it is divided into two arms, which make a
triangle, whose base is at the Mediterranean Sea, and which the Greeks
call the Delta, because of its figure Δ. These two arms are divided into
others, which discharge themselves into the Mediterranean, the distance
of which from the top of the Delta is about twenty leagues. These
branches of the Nile the ancients commonly reckoned to be seven. Ptolemy
makes them nine, some only four, some eleven, some fourteen. Homer,
Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus testify, that the ancient name of this
river was Egyptus; and the latter of these writers says, that it took
the name Nilus only since the time of a king of Egypt called by that
name. The Greeks gave it the name of Melas; and Diodorus Siculus
observes, that the most ancient name by which the Grecians have known
the Nile was Oceanus. The Egyptians paid divine honours to this river,
and called it Jupiter Nilus.
Very little rain ever falls in Egypt, never sufficient to fertilize the
land; and but for the provision of this bountiful river, the country
would be condemned to perpetual sterility. As it is, from the joint
operation of the regularity of the flood, the deposit of mud from the
water of the river and the warmth of the climate, it is the most fertile
country in the world; the produce exceeding all calculation. It has in
consequence been, in all ages, the granary of the east; and has on more
than one occasion, an instance of which is recorded in the history of
Joseph, saved the neighbouring countries from starvation. It is
probable, that, while in these countries, on the occasion referred to,
the seven years’ famine was the result of the absence of rain, in Egypt
it was brought about by the inundation being withheld: and the
consternation of the Egyptians, at witnessing this phenomenon for seven
successive years, may easily be conceived. The origin and course of the
Nile being unknown to the ancients, its stream was held, and is still
held by the natives, in the greatest veneration; and its periodical
overflow was viewed with mysterious wonder. But both of these are now,
from the discoveries of the moderns, better understood. It is now known,
that the sources, or permanent springs, of the Nile are situated in the
mountains of Abyssinia, and the unexplored regions to the west and
south-west of that country; and that the occasional supplies, or causes
of the inundation, are the periodical rains which fall in those
districts. For a correct knowledge of these facts, and of the true
position of the source of that branch of the river, which has generally
been considered to be the continuation of the true Nile, we are indebted
to our countryman, the intrepid and indefatigable Bruce. Although the
Nile, by way of eminence, has been called the river of Egypt,” it must
not be confounded with another stream so denominated in Scripture, an
insignificant rivulet in comparison, which falls into the Mediterranean
below Gaza.
NIMROD. He is generally supposed to have been the immediate son of Cush,
and the youngest, or sixth, from the Scriptural phrase, Cush begat
Nimrod,” after the mention of his five sons, Gen. x, 8. But the phrase
is used with considerable latitude, like father” and son,” in Scripture.
And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and
Calneh, in the land of Shinar: out of that land he went forth to invade
Assyria; and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resin,
between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city,” Gen. x, 8–12.
Though the main body of the Cushites was miraculously dispersed, and
sent by Providence to their destinations along the sea coasts of Asia
and Africa, yet Nimrod remained behind, and founded an empire in
Babylonia, according to Berosus, by usurping the property of the
Arphaxadites in the land of Shinar; where the beginning of his kingdom
was Babel,” or Babylon, and other towns: and, not satisfied with this,
he next invaded Assur, or Assyria, east of the Tigris, where he built
Nineveh, and several other towns. The marginal reading of our English
Bible, He went out into Assyria,” or to invade Assyria, is here adopted
in preference to that in the text: And out of that land went forth
Ashur, and builded Nineveh,” &c. The meaning of the word Nineveh may
lead us to his original name, Nin, signifying a son,” the most
celebrated of the sons of Cush. That of Nimrod, or Rebel,” was probably
a parody, or nickname, given him by the oppressed Shemites, of which we
have several instances in Scripture. Thus _nahash_, the brazen serpent”
in the wilderness, was called by Hezekiah, in contempt, _nehushtan_, a
piece of brass,” when he broke it in pieces, because it was perverted
into an object of idolatrous worship by the Jews, 2 Kings xviii, 4.
Nimrod, that arch rebel, who first subverted the patriarchal government,
introduced also the Zabian idolatry, or worship of the heavenly host;
and, after his death, was deified by his subjects, and supposed to be
translated into the constellations of Orion, attended by his hounds,
Sirius and Canicula, and still pursuing his favourite game, the great
bear; supposed also to be translated into _ursa major_, near the north
pole; as admirably described by Homer,--
Ἄρκτον θ’, ἣν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,
Ἤ τ’ αὐτου ϛρέφεται, καὶ τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει.
_Iliad_ xviii, 485.
And the bear, surnamed also the wain, by the Egyptians, who is turning
herself about there, and watching Orion.” Homer also introduces the
shade of Orion, as hunting in the Elysian fields,--
Τὸν δὲ μέτ’, Ὠρίωνα πελώριον είσενόησα
Θῆρας ὁμοῦ εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελον λειμωνα·
Τοὺς αὐτος κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπόλοισιν ὄρεσσι
Χερσὶν ἔχων ρὅπαλον παγχάλκεον, αἰὲν ἀαγές.
_Odyss._ xi, 571.
Next, I observed the mighty Orion
Chasing wild beasts through an asphodel mead,
Which himself had slain on the solitary mountains:
Holding in his hands a solid brazen mace, ever unbroken.”
The Grecian name of this mighty hunter” may furnish a satisfactory clue
to the name given him by the impious adulation of the Babylonians and
Assyrians. Ὠρίων nearly resembles, Ὀυρίαν, the oblique case of Ὀυρίας,
which is the Septuagint rendering of Uriah, a proper name in Scripture,
2 Sam. xi, 6–21. But Uriah, signifying the light of the Lord,” was an
appropriate appellation of that most brilliant constellation. He was
also called Baal, Beel, Bel, or Belus, signifying lord,” or master,” by
the Phenicians, Assyrians, and Greeks; and Bala Rama, by the Hindus. At
a village called Bala-deva, or Baldeo in the vulgar dialect, thirteen
miles east by south from Muttra, in Hindustan, there is a very ancient
statue of Bala Rama, in which he is represented with a ploughshare in
his left hand, and a thick cudgel in his right, and his shoulders
covered with the skin of a tiger. Captain Wilford supposes that the
ploughshare was designed to hook his enemies; but may it not more
naturally denote the constellation of the great bear, which strikingly
represents the figure of a plough in its seven bright stars; and was
probably so denominated by the earliest astronomers, before the
introduction of the Zabian idolatry, as a celestial symbol of
agriculture? The thick cudgel corresponds to the brazen mace of Homer.
And it is highly probable that the Assyrian Nimrod, or Hindu Bala, was
also the prototype of the Grecian Hercules, with his club and lion’s
skin.
Nimrod is said to have been a mighty hunter before the Lord;” which the
Jerusalem paraphrast interprets of a sinful hunting after the sons of
men to turn them off from the true religion. But it may as well be taken
in a more literal sense, for hunting of wild beasts; inasmuch as the
circumstance of his being a mighty hunter is mentioned with great
propriety to introduce the account of his setting up his kingdom; the
exercise of hunting being looked upon in ancient times as a means of
acquiring the rudiments of war; for which reason, the principal heroes
of Heathen antiquity, as Theseus, Nestor, &c, were, as Xenophon tells
us, bred up to hunting. Beside, it may be supposed, that by this
practice Nimrod drew together a great company of robust young men to
attend him in his sport, and by that means increased his power. And by
destroying the wild beasts, which, in the comparatively defenceless
state of society in those early ages, were no doubt very dangerous
enemies, he might, perhaps, render himself farther popular; thereby
engaging numbers to join with him, and to promote his chief design of
subduing men, and making himself master of many nations.
NINEVEH. This capital of the Assyrian empire could boast of the remotest
antiquity. Tacitus styles it, _Vetustissima sedes Assyriæ_;” [the most
ancient seat of Assyria;] and Scripture informs us that Nimrod, after he
had built Babel, in the land of Shinar, invaded Assyria, where he built
Nineveh, and several other cities, Genesis x, 11. Its name denotes the
habitation of Nin,” which seems to have been the proper name of that
rebel,” as Nimrod signifies. And it is uniformly styled by Herodotus,
Xenophon, Diodorus, Lucian, &c, Ἡ Νίνος, the city of Ninus.” And the
village of Nunia, opposite Mosul, in its name, and the tradition of the
natives, ascertains the site of the ancient city, which was near the
castle of Arbela, according to Tacitus, so celebrated for the decisive
victory of Alexander the Great over the Persians there; the site of
which is ascertained by the village of Arbil, about ten German miles to
the east of Nunia, according to Niebuhr’s map. Nineveh at first seems
only to have been a small city, and less than Resen, in its
neighbourhood; which is conjectured by Bochart, and not without reason,
to have been the same as Larissa, which Xenophon describes as the ruins
of a great city, formerly inhabited by the Medes,” and which the natives
might have described as belonging _la Resen_, to Resen.” Nineveh did not
rise to greatness for many ages after, until its second founder, Ninus
II., about B. C. 1230, enlarged and made it the greatest city in the
world. According to Diodorus, it was of an oblong form, a hundred and
fifty stadia long, and ninety broad, and, consequently, four hundred and
eighty in circuit, or forty-eight miles, reckoning ten stadia to an
English mile, with Major Rennel. And its walls were a hundred feet high,
and so broad that three chariots could drive on them abreast; and on the
walls were fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. We are
not, however, to imagine that all this vast enclosure was built upon: it
contained great parks and extensive fields, and detached houses and
buildings, like Babylon, and other great cities of the east even at the
present day, as Bussorah, &c. And this entirely corresponds with the
representations of Scripture. In the days of the Prophet Jonah, about B.
C. 800, it seems to have been a “great city, an exceeding great city, of
three days’ journey,” Jonah i, 2; iii, 3; perhaps in circuit. The
population of Nineveh, also, at that time was very great. It contained
more than sixscore thousand persons that could not discern between their
right hand and their left, beside much cattle,” Jonah iv, 11. Reckoning
the persons to have been infants of two years old and under, and that
these were a fifth part of the whole, according to Bochart, the whole
population would amount to six hundred thousand souls. The same number
Pliny assigns for the population of Seleucia, on the decline of Babylon.
This population shows that a great part of the city must have been left
open and unbuilt.
The threatened overthrow of Nineveh within three days, was, by the
general repentance and humiliation of the inhabitants, from the highest
to the lowest, suspended for near two hundred years, until their
iniquity came to the full;” and then the prophecy was literally
accomplished, in the third year of the siege of the city, by the
combined Medes and Babylonians; the king, Sardanapalus, being encouraged
to hold out in consequence of an ancient prophecy, that Nineveh should
never be taken by assault, till the river became its enemy; when a
mighty inundation of the river, swollen by continual rains, came up
against a part of the city, and threw down twenty stadia of the wall in
length; upon which, the king, conceiving that the oracle was
accomplished, burned himself, his concubines, eunuchs, and treasures;
and the enemy, entering by the breach, sacked and rased the city, about
B. C. 606. Diodorus, also, relates that Belesis, the governor of
Babylon, obtained from Arbaces, the king of Media, the ashes of the
palace, to erect a mount with them near the temple of Belus at Babylon;
and that he forthwith prepared shipping, and, together with the ashes,
carried away most of the gold and silver, of which he had private
information given him by one of the eunuchs who escaped the fire. Dr.
Gillies thinks it incredible that these could be transported from
Nineveh to Babylon, three hundred miles distant; but likely enough, if
Nineveh was only fifty miles from Babylon, with a large canal of
communication between them, the Nahar Malka, or Royal River. But we
learn from Niebuhr, that the conveyance of goods from Nosul to Bagdat by
the Tigris is very commodious, in the very large boats called _helleks_;
in which, in spring, when the river is rapid, the voyage may be made in
three or four days, which would take fifteen by land. The complete
demolition of such immense piles as the walls and towers of Nineveh may
seem matter of surprise to those who do not consider the nature of the
materials of which they were constructed, that is, of bricks, dried or
baked in the sun, and cemented with bitumen, which were apt to be
dissolved” by water, or to moulder away by the injuries of the weather.
Beside, in the east, the materials of ancient cities have been often
employed in the building of new ones in the neighbourhood. Thus Mosul
was built with the spoils of Nineveh. Tauk Kesra, or the Palace of
Chosroes, appears to have been built of bricks brought from the ruins of
Babylon; and so was Hellah, as the dimensions are nearly the same, and
the proportions so singular. And when such materials could conveniently
be transported by inland navigations, they are to be found at very great
distances from their ancient place, much farther, indeed, than are
Bagdat and Seleucia, or Ctesiphon, from Babylon.
The book of Nahum was avowedly prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh;
and it is there foretold that the gates of the river shall be opened,
and the palace shall be dissolved. Nineveh of old, like a pool of water,
with an overflowing flood he will make an utter end of the place
thereof,” Nahum ii, 6; i, 8, 9. The historian describes the facts by
which the other predictions of the prophet were as literally fulfilled.
He relates that the king of Assyria, elated with his former victories,
and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, had abandoned himself to
scandalous inaction; had appointed a time of festivity, and supplied his
soldiers with abundance of wine; and that the general of the enemy,
apprised by deserters, of their negligence and drunkenness, attacked the
Assyrian army while the whole of them were fearlessly giving way to
indulgence, destroyed great part of them, and drove the rest into the
city. The words of the prophet were hereby verified: While they be
folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they
shall be devoured as stubble fully dry,” Nahum i, 10. The prophet
promised much spoil to the enemy: Take the spoil of silver, take the
spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store and glory out of all the
pleasant furniture,” Nahum ii, 9. And the historian affirms that many
talents of gold and silver, preserved from the fire, were carried to
Ecbatana. According to Nahum, iii, 15, the city was not only to be
destroyed by an overflowing flood, but the fire, also, was to devour it;
and, as Diodorus relates, partly by water, partly by fire, it was
destroyed.