1 SAMUEL I. 11. Look on the affliction of thine handmaid. "Do thou, most beauteous goddess, look upon the descendants of Æneas with pleased aspect, and do thou protect thy daughters-in-law."-Ov. Fast. 1. IV. v. 161. 13. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. "Suppliant, the Tegan chief implores Th' immortal powers, and silently adores."-STAT. Theb. I. VI. v. 631. 1 SAMUEL II. 6. The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 7. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. "With ease the will of Jove, who wills the right, Confounds the mighty, gives the feeble might; With ease bids envied grandeur waste away."-HES. oper. et dies, v. 5. Ulysses complains, Jove, for so it pleased him, hath reduced My all to nothing."-Hoм. Odyss. 1. XIX. v. 80. Horace has an ode to Fortune or Providence : : "Whose various will with instant power can raise Or change proud triumphs to the funeral tear."-HOR. 1. 1. carm. 35. 15. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest: for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. "The priest of Jupiter is forbidden to touch raw flesh." PLUT. Quæst. Rom. qu. 109. 30. Them that honour me I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. "VENUS: Those, indeed, who reverence my authority I advance to honour, but overthrow as many as hold themselves high towards me."-EURIP. Hippol. v. 5. 1 SAMUEL III. 9. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. "The Egyptians are of opinion that young children have the gift of revealing secrets; and they observe all that they say, even in their sports, no matter what be the subject of their prattle. Especially the words they may happen to utter in the temples are deemed full of augury."-PLUT. de Isid, et Osirid. c. 14. Quintilian, enumerating various kinds of auguries, oracles, and auspices, includes among them "Discoveries that are made by infants."-QUINTIL. 1. v. c. 7. 13. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. Halitherses, addressing the men of Ithaca, says: "Ye Fathers, hear! from you alone proceed 17. God do so to thee, and more also. Ном. Odyss. 1. xxiv. v. 455. This form of adjuration may be referred to the manner of making covenants in the earliest ages. This is noticed under Gen. xv. 17, Judges VIII. 33. The following passages, which show the manner of striking a covenant, as it was called, may throw some further light upon the subject: When Paris and Menelaus are about to engage in single combat, in order to put an end to the war, the kings on either side meet, and take a solemn oath to abide by the conditions of the combat. These having been stated, "With that the chief the tender victims slew, And in the dust their bleeding bodies threw; While thus their prayers united mount the sky, And may their blood, who first the league confound, HOм. Il. 1. I. v. 292. When the seven chiefs bound themselves by an oath to overthrow Thebes, a herald thus describes the event to King Eteocles : "Seven valiant chiefs Slew on the black orb'd shield the victim bull, And dipping in the gore their furious hands, Bellona, and the carnage-loving pow'r Of Terror, sworn from their firm base to rend These walls, and lay their ramparts in the dust, Hannibal, promising rewards to his soldiers, swears thus: "Holding in his left hand a lamb, and in his right hand a flint stone, he prayed to Jupiter and the rest of the gods that, if he did not fulfil these engagements, he would slay him in like manner as he slew that lamb; and after this imprecation he broke the animal's head with a stone."-LIV. 1. xxI. c. 45. Metellus swears that he will not desert the Commonwealth of the Roman people, and adds: : "If knowingly I break this oath, then do thou, Jupiter, supremely good and great, overwhelm in the severest ruin my self, my house, my family, and my fortune." IBID. 1. XXII. c. 53. 18. And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good. The reply of Socrates to Crito, when told that he was to die, was— 1 SAMUEL V. 3. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord: and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. In the Babylonian mythology the name Dagon (Odakon) is applied to a fish-like being who rose from the waters of the Red Sea, as one of the great benefactors of men. Bryant supposes this tradition to have originated in the history of Noah, who, after the flood, repeopled the earth and introduced civilisation. The fact that the Phenician Dagon is compared by ancient writers with Zeus Arotrios, the god of agriculture, gives strength to this conjecture. Dagon was represented with the face and hands of a man, and the tail of a fish, which is here called "the stump." Various kinds of fish were held sacred by the Egyptians, and were objects of worship. See Exod. vII. 21. "The river Chalus is one hundred feet broad, and full of large tame fish, which the Syrians look upon as gods, and do not suffer them to be injured." XEN. Anab. 1. 1. c. 4. "At Ascalon, in Syria, is a deep lake abounding with fish, near to which is a temple dedicated to a famous goddess, who by the Syrians is called Dercetis. She has the face of a woman, but the rest of the image is the figure of a fish."-DIOD. SIC. 1. II. c. 1. "The Syrians worship fishes, and adore them as gods." PLUT. Sympos. 1. vi. qu. 8 "Of Derketo I saw in Phoenicia a drawing, in which she is represented in a curious form, for in the upper half she is a woman, but from the waist to the lower extremities runs into the tail of a fish. A fish is held sacred in Hierapolis, and is never eaten-a custom which seems to have been introduced in honour of Derketo." LUCIAN. de dea Syria, c. 14. Ovid also alludes to the history of Derceto. One of the daughters of Mineus pro poses- "While others idly rove, and gods revere, to tell some antique tale for the amusement of her sisters; "And knew not whether she should first relate The poor Dircetis, and her wond'rous fate. And show the lake in which her scales began." Ov. Metem. 1. IV. v. 44. "The Syrians abhor to feed on fishes Nor is it fit to make their gods their dishes." 6. IBID. Fast. 1. II. v. 473. But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. "On the Scythians, who plundered the temple of Venus, and indeed on all their posterity, the deity entailed a fatal punishment (viz. hemerhoids). Their condition may be seen by those who visit Scythia, where they are called Enarece.”—HDт. l. 1. c. 105. 1 SAMUEL VI. 4. Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. The custom which prevailed among idolatrous nations of offering to the god to whom the cure of any disease or the deliverance from any peril was attributed, a representation of the parts affected or a memorial of the danger escaped, is supposed to have been derived from the history of the brazen serpent, which was laid up in the sanctuary of the Jews. The five golden mice were probably offered on account of the injury which the land had suffered from these animals; or it may have been from some superstitious reverence of which mice were the object. The scholiast on the Acharnians of Aristophanes, says: The god Bacchus, being incensed against the Athenians, sent a grievous and incurable disease upon the men (eis rà aidôta). Having sent to consult the oracle, they received for reply, that their only hope of relief was in conferring the highest possible honour on the god. Upon this they erected images of the parts affected, both in public places and in their homes, thus, at the same time, honouring the deity, and setting up a memorial of the evil which had afflicted them. "The story of Arion and the dolphins is related both by the Corinthians and the Lesbians; and there remains at Tænarus a small figure in brass of a man seated on a dolphin's back, the votive offering of Arion himself."-HDT 1. 1. c. 24. "Some goat-herds who had escaped from a lion upon the mountains, placed up by this oak tree this well-painted picture of the event, to Jove, who is on the hill-top." LEONIDAS, Anthol. Græc. "To the Samo-thracian gods I, Lucilius, saved from the sea, have thus cut off the hair from my head; for I have nothing else to offer."-LUCIAN. Epigr. 34. "Within the space an olive tree had stood, A sacred shade, a venerable wood, For vows to Faunus paid, the Latins' guardian god: VIRG. n. 1. XII. v. 768. "The sacred wall of Neptune's temple shews, by a votive tablet, that I have consecrated dropping garments to the powerful god of the sea."-HOR.1.1. carm. 5. 66 Although your talent be to paint with grace A mournful cypress, would you pour its shade IBID. de arte poet. v. 19. "An ancient oak in the dark centre stood, Ov. Metam. 1. VIII. v. 744. Juvenal, describing the perils of the sea, alludes to these votive pictures in the temples of Iris : "From the same source another danger view, Since our own gods no longer yield them bread!" Juv. Sat. XI. v. 24. 12. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh. 13. And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. 14. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. "If indeed Thou dost foresee thy death, why, like the heifer Led by an heavenly impulse, do thy steps Advance thus boldly to the cruel altar ?"-ÆSCH. Agam. v. 1296. "Cadmus came from Tyre to this land, before whom the four-footed heifer bent with willing fall, shewing the accomplishment of the oracle, when the divine word ordered him to colonise the plains of the Aonians."-EURIP. Phæniss. v. 638. Agenor, having traversed the world in search of his daughter "Goes a suppliant to the Delphic dome; Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough; In which the destin'd walls and town shall stand." 1 SAMUEL VII. 6. And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh. Libations were made by the ancients for confirmation of an oath or covenant; perhaps the ceremony here described was so intended, as the Israelites were now renewing their vows unto the Lord. Grotius supposes that the pouring out of water is a figurative expression, descriptive of the abundance of the tears that were shed. "Water instead of wine is brought in urns, Ном. Одув 36 |