of the Dead Sea, to the gulf of Acaba, or Ezion-Geber. The whole of this
tract was probably before called Mount Hor, and was inhabited by the
Horites, the descendants, as it is thought, of Hor, who is no otherwise
known, and whose name is now only retained in that part of the plain
where Aaron died. These people were driven out from their country by the
Edomites, or the children of Esau, who dwelt there in their stead, and
were in possession of this region when the Israelites passed by in their
passage from Egypt to the land of Canaan. The country had, however, been
previously overrun, and no doubt very much depopulated, by the invasion
of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. At what time the name of Hor was changed
to that of Seir cannot be ascertained. Mount Seir rises abruptly on its
western side from the valleys of El Ghor and El Araba; presenting an
impregnable front to the strong country of the Edomite mountaineers,
which compelled the Israelites, who were unable (if permitted by their
leader) to force a passage through this mountain barrier, to skirt its
western base, along the great valley of the Ghor and Araba, and so to
“compass the land of Edom by the way of the Red Sea,” that is, to
descend to its southern extremity at Ezion-Geber, as they could not
penetrate it higher up. To the southward of this place Burckhardt
observed an opening in the mountains, where he supposed the Israelites
to have passed. This passage brought them into the high plains on the
east of Mount Seir, which are so much higher than the valley on the
west, that the mountainous territory of the Edomites was every where
more accessible: a circumstance which perhaps contributed to make them
more afraid of the Israelites on this border, whom they had set at
defiance on the opposite one. The mean elevation of this chain cannot be
estimated at less than four thousand feet. In the summer it produces
most of the European fruits, namely, apricots, figs, pomegranates,
olives, apples, and peaches; while in winter deep snows occasionally
fall, with frosts, to the middle of March. The inhabitants, like those
of most mountainous regions, are very healthy. Burckhardt says, that
there was no part of Syria in which he saw so few invalids: a
circumstance which did not escape the observation of the ancients, who
denominated it, _Palæstina tertia sive salutaris_. [Palestine the third
or the healthy.]
SELAH. This expression is found in the Psalms seventy-four times, and
thrice in the Prophet Habakkuk. The interpreters Symmachus and
Theodotion generally translate _selah_ by _diapsalma_, which signifies
“a rest” or “pause” in singing. Jerom and Aquila translate it “for
ever.” Some moderns pretend that _selah_ has no signification, and that
it is only a note of the ancient music, whose use is no longer known;
and, indeed, _selah_ may be taken away from all the places where it is
found without interrupting the sense of the psalm. Calmet says it
intimates the end, or a pause, and that is its proper signification; but
as it is not always found at the conclusion of the sense, or of the
psalm or song, so it is highly probable the ancient musicians put
_selah_ in the margin of their psalters, to show where a musical pause
was to be made, or where the tune ended.
SELEUCIA, a city of Syria, situated upon the Mediterranean, near the
place where the Orontes discharges itself into the sea. St. Paul and
Barnabas were at this place when they embarked for Cyprus, Acts xiii, 4.
The same city is mentioned in 1 Mac. xi, 8.
SENNACHERIB, king of Assyria, son and successor of Shalmaneser. He began
his reign A. M. 3290, and reigned only four years. Hezekiah, king of
Judah, having refused to pay him tribute, though he afterward submitted,
he invaded Judea with a great army, took several forts, and after
repeated, insolent, and blasphemous messages, besieged Jerusalem; but
his army being suddenly smitten with a pestilence, which cut off a
hundred and eighty-five thousand in a single night, he returned to
Nineveh, where he was murdered in the temple of Nisroch by his sons
Adrammelech and Sharezer, and was succeeded by his other son,
Esar-haddon, 2 Kings xix, 7, 13, 37.
SEPHARVAIM, a country of Assyria, 2 Kings xvii, 24, 31. This province
cannot now be exactly delineated in respect to its situation. The
Scripture speaks of the king of the city of Sepharvaim, which probably
was the capital of the people of this name, 2 Kings xix, 13; Isaiah
xxxvii, 13.
SEPTUAGINT. Among the Greek versions of the Old Testament, says Mr.
Horne, the Alexandrian or Septuagint is the most ancient and valuable,
and was held in so much esteem both by the Jews as well as by the first
Christians, as to be constantly read in the synagogues and churches.
Hence it is uniformly cited by the early fathers, whether Greek or
Latin; and from this version all the translations into other languages
which were anciently approved by the Christian church were executed,
with the exception of the Syriac; as the Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic,
Gothic, and old Italic or the Latin version in use before the time of
Jerom; and to this day the Septuagint is exclusively read in the Greek
and most other oriental churches. This version has derived its name
either from the Jewish account of seventy-two persons having been
employed to make it, or from its having received the approbation of the
sanhedrim or great council of the Jews, which consisted of seventy, or,
more correctly, of seventy-two persons. Much uncertainty, however, has
prevailed concerning the real history of this ancient version; and while
some have strenuously advocated its miraculous and Divine origin, other
eminent philologists have laboured to prove that it must have been
executed by several persons and at different times. According to one
account, Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, caused this translation to
be made for the use of the library which he had founded at Alexandria,
at the request and with the advice of the celebrated Demetrius
Phalereus, his principal librarian. For this purpose, it is reported,
that he sent Aristeas and Andreas, two distinguished officers of his
court, to Jerusalem, on an embassy to Eleazar, then high priest of the
Jews, to request of the latter a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that
there might also be sent to him seventy-two persons, six chosen out of
each of the twelve tribes, who were equally well skilled in the Hebrew
and Greek languages. These learned men were accordingly shut up in the
island of Pharos; where, having agreed in a translation of each period
after a mutual conference, Demetrius wrote down their version as they
dictated it to him; and thus, in the space of seventy-two days, the
whole was accomplished. This relation is derived from a letter ascribed
to Aristeas himself, the authenticity of which has been greatly
disputed. If, as there is every reason to believe is the case, this
piece is a forgery, it was made at a very early period; for it was in
existence in the time of Josephus, who has made use of it in his Jewish
Antiquities. The veracity of Aristeas’s narrative was not questioned
until the seventeenth or eighteenth century, at which time, indeed,
Biblical criticism was, comparatively, in its infancy, Vives, Scaliger,
Van Dale, Dr. Prideaux, and, above all, Dr. Hody, were the principal
writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who attacked the
genuineness of the pretended narrative of Aristeas; and though it was
ably vindicated by Bishop Walton, Isaac Vossius, Whiston, Brett, and
other modern writers, the majority of the learned of our own time are
fully agreed in considering it as fictitious. Philo, the Jew, who also
notices the Septuagint version, was ignorant of most of the
circumstances narrated by Aristeas; but he relates others which appear
not less extraordinary. According to him, Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to
Palestine for some learned Jews, whose number he does not specify; and
these, going over to the island of Pharos, there executed so many
distinct versions, all of which so exactly and uniformly agreed in
sense, phrases, and words, as proved them to have been not common
interpreters, but men prophetically inspired and divinely directed, who
had every word dictated to them by the Spirit of God throughout the
entire translation. He adds, that an annual festival was celebrated by
the Alexandrian Jews in the isle of Pharos, where the version was made,
until his time, to preserve the memory of it, and to thank God for so
great a benefit.
It is not a little remarkable that the Samaritans have traditions in
favour of their version of the Pentateuch, equally extravagant with
these preserved by the Jews. In the Samaritan chronicle of Abul Phatach,
which was compiled in the fourteenth century from ancient and modern
authors, both Hebrew and Arabic, there is a story to the following
effect: that Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the tenth year of his reign,
directed his attention to the difference subsisting between the
Samaritans and Jews concerning the law, the former receiving only the
Pentateuch, and rejecting every other work ascribed to the prophets by
the Jews. In order to determine this difference, he commanded the two
nations to send deputies to Alexandria. The Jews entrusted this mission
to Osar, the Samaritans to Aaron, to whom several other associates were
added. Separate apartments in a particular quarter of Alexandria were
assigned to each of these strangers, who were prohibited from having any
personal intercourse, and each of them had a Greek scribe to write his
version. Thus were the law and other Scriptures translated by the
Samaritans; whose version being most carefully examined, the king was
convinced that their text was more complete than that of the Jews. Such
is the narrative of Abul Phatach, divested, however, of numerous
marvellous circumstances with which it has been decorated by the
Samaritans, who are not surpassed, even by the Jews, in their partiality
for idle legends.
A fact, buried under such a mass of fables as the translation of the
Septuagint has been by the historians who have pretended to record it,
necessarily loses all its historical character, which, indeed, we are
fully justified in disregarding altogether. Although there is no doubt
but that some truth is concealed under this load of fables, yet it is by
no means an easy task to discern the truth from what is false: the
following, however, is the result of our researches concerning this
celebrated version:--
It is probable that the seventy interpreters, as they are called,
executed their version of the Pentateuch during the joint reigns of
Ptolemy Lagus and his son Philadelphus. The pseudo Aristeas, Josephus,
Philo, and many other writers whom it were tedious to enumerate, relate
that this version was made during the reign of Ptolemy II., or
Philadelphus; Joseph Ben Gorion, however, among the rabbins, Theodoret,
and many other Christian writers, refer its date to the time of Ptolemy
Lagus. Now, these two traditions can be reconciled only by supposing the
version to have been performed during the two years when Ptolemy
Philadelphus shared the throne with his father; which date coincides
with the third and fourth years of the hundred and twenty-third
Olympiad, that is, about B. C. 286 and 285. Farther, this version was
neither made by the command of Ptolemy, nor at the request nor under the
superintendence of Demetrius Phalereus; but was voluntarily undertaken
by the Jews for the use of their countrymen. It is well known, that, at
the period above noticed, there was a great number of Jews settled in
Egypt, particularly at Alexandria: these, being most strictly observant
of the religious institutions and usages of their forefathers, had their
sanhedrim or grand council composed of seventy or seventy-two members,
and very numerous synagogues, in which the law was read to them on every
Sabbath; and as the bulk of the common people were no longer acquainted
with Biblical Hebrew, the Greek language alone being used in their
ordinary intercourse, it became necessary to translate the Pentateuch
into Greek for their use. This is a far more probable account of the
origin of the Alexandrian version than the traditions above stated. If
this translation had been made by public authority, it would
unquestionably have been performed under the direction of the sanhedrim,
who would have examined and perhaps corrected it, if it had been the
work of a single individual, previously to giving it the stamp of their
approbation, and introducing it into their synagogues. In either case
the translation would probably be denominated the Septuagint, because
the sanhedrim was composed of seventy or seventy-two members. It is even
possible that the sanhedrim, in order to ascertain the fidelity of the
work, might have sent to Palestine for some learned men, of whose
assistance and advice they would have availed themselves in examining
the version. This fact, if it could be proved, for it is offered as a
mere conjecture, would account for the story of the king of Egypt’s
sending an embassy to Jerusalem: there is, however, one circumstance
which proves that, in executing this translation, the synagogues were
originally in contemplation, namely, that all the ancient writers
unanimously concur in saying that the Pentateuch was first translated.
The five books of Moses, indeed, were the only books read in the
synagogues until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria; who
having forbidden that practice in Palestine, the Jews evaded his
commands by substituting for the Pentateuch the reading of the prophetic
books. When, afterward, the Jews were delivered from the tyranny of the
kings of Syria, they read the law and the prophets alternately in the
synagogues; and the same custom was adopted by the Hellenistic or
Græcising Jews.
But, whatever was the real number of the authors of the version, their
introduction of Coptic words, such as οἴφι ἄχι ρεμφὰν, &c, as well as
their rendering of ideas purely Hebrew altogether in the Egyptian
manner, clearly prove that they were natives of Egypt. Thus, they
express the creation of the world, not by the proper Greek word κτίσις,
but by γένεσις, a term employed by the philosophers of Alexandria to
express the origin of the universe. The Hebrew word _thummim_, Exodus
xxviii, 30, which signifies “perfections,” they render ἀλήθεια, _truth_.
The difference of style also indicates the version to have been the work
not of one but of several translators, and to have been executed at
different times. The best qualified and most able among them was the
translator of the Pentateuch, who was evidently master of both Greek and
Hebrew: he has religiously followed the Hebrew text, and has in various
instances introduced the most suitable and best chosen expressions. From
the very close resemblance subsisting between the text of the Greek
version and the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Louis De Dieu, Selden,
Whiston, Hassencamp, and Bauer, are of opinion that the author of the
Alexandrian version made it from the Samaritan Pentateuch. And in
proportion as these two correspond, the Greek differs from the Hebrew.
This opinion is farther supported by the declarations of Origen and
Jerom, that the translator found the venerable name of Jehovah, not in
the letters in common use, but in very ancient characters; and also by
the fact that those consonants in the Septuagint are frequently
confounded together, the shapes of which are similar in the Samaritan,
but not in the Hebrew, alphabet. This hypothesis, however ingenious and
plausible, is by no means determinate; and what militates most against
it is, the inveterate enmity subsisting between the Jews and Samaritans,
added to the constant and unvarying testimony of antiquity, that the
Greek version of the Pentateuch was executed by Jews. There is no other
way by which to reconcile these conflicting opinions than by supposing
either that the manuscript used by the Egyptian Jews approximated toward
the letters and text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, or that the
translators of the Septuagint made use of manuscripts written in ancient
characters. Next to the Pentateuch, for ability and fidelity of
execution, ranks the translation of the book of Proverbs, the author of
which was well skilled in the two languages: Michaëlis is of opinion
that, of all the books of the Septuagint, the style of the Proverbs is
the best, the translator having clothed the most ingenious thoughts in
as neat and elegant language as was ever used by a Pythagorean sage, to
express his philosophical maxims.
The Septuagint version, though originally made for the use of the
Egyptian Jews, gradually acquired the highest authority among the Jews
of Palestine, who were acquainted with the Greek language, and
subsequently also among Christians: it appears, indeed, that the legend
above confuted, of the translators having been divinely inspired, was
invented in order that the LXX. might be held in the greater estimation.
Philo, the Jew, a native of Egypt, has evidently followed it in his
allegorical expositions of the Mosaic law; and though Dr. Hody was of
opinion that Josephus, who was a native of Palestine, corroborated his
work on Jewish antiquities from the Hebrew text, yet Salmasius, Bochart,
Bauer, and others, have shown that he has adhered to the Septuagint
throughout that work. How extensively this version was in use among the
Jews, appears from the solemn sanction given to it by the inspired
writers of the New Testament, who have in very many passages quoted the
Greek version of the Old Testament. Their example was followed by the
earlier fathers and doctors of the church, who, with the exception of
Origen and Jerom, were unacquainted with Hebrew: notwithstanding their
zeal for the word of God, they did not exert themselves to learn the
original language of the sacred writings, but acquiesced in the Greek
representation of them, judging it, no doubt, to be fully sufficient for
all the purposes of their pious labours. The Greek Scriptures were the
only Scriptures known to or valued by the Greeks. This was the text
commented on by Chrysostom and Theodoret: it was this which furnished
topics to Athanasius, Nazianzen, and Basil. From this fountain the
stream was derived to the Latin church, first by the Italic or Vulgate
translation of the Scriptures, which was made from the Septuagint, and
not from the Hebrew; and, secondly, by the study of the Greek fathers.
It was by this borrowed light that the Latin fathers illumined the
western hemisphere; and, when the age of Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine,
and Gregory, successively passed away, this was the light put into the
hands of the next dynasty of theologists, the schoolmen, who carried on
the work of theological disquisition by the aid of this luminary, and
none other. So that, either in Greek or in Latin, it was still the
Septuagint Scriptures that were read, explained, and quoted as
authority, for a period of fifteen hundred years.
SEPTUAGINT CHRONOLOGY is that which is formed from the dates and periods
of time mentioned in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. It
reckons one thousand five hundred years more from the creation to
Abraham than the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Kennicott, in the dissertation
prefixed to his Hebrew Bible, has shown it to be very probable, that the
chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures, since the period just mentioned,
was corrupted by the Jews between A. D. 175 and 200; and that the
chronology of the Septuagint is more agreeable to truth. It is a fact,
that, during the second and third centuries, the Hebrew Scriptures were
almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, while the Septuagint was
confined to the Christians. The Jews had, therefore, a very favourable
opportunity for this corruption. The following is the reason which is
given by the oriental writers: It being a very ancient tradition that
Messiah was to come in the sixth chiliad, because he was to come in the
last days, founded on a mystical application of the six days of the
creation, the contrivance was to shorten the age of the world from about
5500 to 3760; and thence to prove that Jesus could not be the Messiah.
Dr. Kennicott adds, that some Hebrew copies, having the larger
chronology, were extant till the time of Eusebius, and some till the
year 700.
SEPULCHRES. The descriptions of the eastern sepulchres, by travellers,
serve to explain several passages of Scripture. Shaw says, “If we except
a few persons who are buried within the precincts of some sanctuary, the
rest are carried out at a small distance from their cities and villages,
where a great extent of ground is allotted for that purpose. Each family
has a particular portion of it, walled in like a garden, where the bones
of their ancestors have remained undisturbed for many generations: for
in these inclosures the graves are all distinct and separate, having
each of them a stone placed upright, both at the head and feet,
inscribed with the name of the person who lieth there interred, while
the intermediate space is either planted with flowers, bordered round
with stone, or paved all over with tiles. The graves of the principal
citizens are farther distinguished by some square chambers or cupolas
that are built over them, Mark v, 3. Now, as all these different sorts
of tombs and sepulchres, with the very walls likewise of the inclosures,
are constantly kept clean, white-washed, and beautified, they continue
to this day to be an excellent comment upon that expression of our
Saviour, where he mentions the garnishing of the sepulchres, Matt.
xxiii, 29; and again, verse 27, where he compares the scribes,
Pharisees, and hypocrites, to whited sepulchres.” With respect to the
demoniacs who are said by St. Matthew to come out of the tombs, Light
observes, “I trod the ground celebrated for the miracle of the unclean
spirit, driven by our Saviour among the swine. The tombs still exist in
the form of caverns, on the sides of the hills that rise from the shore
of the lake; and from their wild appearance may well be considered the
habitation of men exceeding fierce, possessed by a devil; they extend at
a distance for more than a mile from the present town.” In the account
we have of the resurrection of Lazarus, when Mary went suddenly out to
meet Jesus, the Jews supposed that she was gone to the grave, “to weep
there.” The following extract from Buckingham illustrates this: “Not far
from the spot at which we halted to enjoy this enchanting view, was an
extensive cemetry, at which we noticed the custom so prevalent among
eastern nations of visiting the tombs of their deceased friends. These
were formed with great care, and finished with extraordinary neatness:
and at the foot of each grave was enclosed a small earthen vessel, in
which was planted a sprig of myrtle, regularly watered every day by the
mourning friend who visited it. Throughout the whole of this extensive
place of burial we did not observe a single grave to which this token of
respect and sorrow was not attached; and, scattered among the tombs, in
different quarters of the cemetry, we saw from twenty to thirty parties
of females, sitting near the honoured remains of some recently lost and
deeply regretted relative or friend, and either watering their myrtle
plants, or strewing flowers over the green turf that closed upon their
heads.” See BURIAL.