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signifies bowl, we should join it to the following word, it would equally signify, in Judges v. 25, lordly bowl, and in Judges vi. 38, water bowl, as in the present way of placing the letters, only the word would be saph instead of sephel.

However, supposing the present division perfectly authentic, the words sephel and saph are so near each other, that since sephel signifies bowl, such as the Arabs use, I should apprehend saph might signify the same kind of vessel. It is certain there is nothing in the six places, in which it is used, that opposes such an interpretation.'

Seer, from a collation of all the passages in which it occurs, seems to mean the Arab pot for boiling meat. It appears, by a circumstance mentioned 2 Kings iv. 38, to have been made of different sizes; but should never, I imagine, have been translated caldron, as it sometimes is in our version. The vessel used for removing ashes, mentioned Exod. xxvii. 3,

▾ Jars and pitchers for fetching water for numbers of people, and for drinking out of; bowls for kneading their bread, and afterwards for eating out of, must have been most necessary to the people that attended king David to Mahanaim, and consequently the first probably were the earthen vessels brought to them; and the bowls being of wood or copper tinned, were what our version calls basons. The Septuagint talks of pots, which also were very neces sary, but not so much so as bowls. These, however, most probably, were sent, being so necessary for preparing their food, though they are not particularly mentioned. So wine, without doubt, was furnished by them with the other provisions, though this is not expressly said. To this is to be added, that the copies the Septuagint translated from seem, in this place, to have been somewhat different from those we have.

and some of the vessels used about the sacred candlestick, or the altar of inċense, seem to have received their denomination from their being in form like their seething-pots.

Kallachath p is the word that seems to mean the kettle of the Arabs, such a great utensil as those in which they sometimes stew a whole lamb or kid. It is found only in two places of Scripture: Mic. iii. 3. 1 Sam. ii. 14.

Dishes or plates, are conveniences that the Arabs themselves have; and Plaistead, when he proposed to reduce the number of travelling utensils, recommends copper plates, as well as sneakers or bowls, p. 34: I have already observed, that tzelochith, or tzallachath, seems to be the Hebrew term for this utensil. Our translators render the word dish, in one place, 2 Kings xxi. 13; but by three different words, in the other places. See p. 116.

Cad I have shewn, in a distinct article of this chapter, signifies that great jar in which they keep their corn, and sometimes fetch their

water.

Nebel means, I apprehend, an earthen vessel not very unlike the preceding, in which they keep their wine. Voyage-writers, I think, frequently call them jars; but as the Hebrew gives us a different term for those vessels, it must be right to appropriate an English term to this kind of vessels. The translator of the Arabian Nights Entertainments denominates such a vessel a jug, and perhaps we cannot find a better. Our version generally renders it a

bottle, a term which, I doubt, neither answers its shape, nor excites a proper idea of the quantity of wine that such a vessel contains: in one place, Lam. iv. 2, it is translated pitcher; and in another place by the general term vessel.

Nod occurs five or six times, and is always translated bottle in our version; but certainly differs much from the last-mentioned utensil, which was an earthen vessel, this, one of leather; it agrees with it in being of large capacity, used, it seems, for churning, as well as for wine; whereas, there are small leather bottles, called matarras, according to Plaistead. Bottle then does not seem to be so proper a translation, nor even leather bottle; and what would be a proper term is difficnlt to say, as we have no such vessel, I think, in England. Plaistead calls them skins, and Maundrell goats'-skins; and either of these terms would do very well to translate the passages of Scripture by in common, in which the word nod occurs; but what shall we say to Psalm lvi. 8? shall we translate it, Thou tellest my wanderings; put thou my tears in thy goatskin? Would it not sound still worse, put thou my tears in thy skin? The term makes out GOD's not suffering his tears to fall unnoticed ;

z The Persian word is matargh, and signifies a flexible leather drinking bottle, or cup used by travellers, EDIT.

. P. 29. "He brought us the next day, on his own back, a kid, and a goat's skin of wine, as a present from the convent."

and it involves in it the notion of the large quantities his afflictions forced from him; but it is extremely difficult to find one single word which would be applied, with propriety, to all the passages in which the Hebrew word appears.

Chemeth no one would imagine, means a smaller vessel of leather, for the holding liquors, larger however, perhaps, than the modern matarras (matarah), since one of them filled with water, was, so far as we know, all the liquid provision Hagar and Ishmael had when they went into the wilderness, Gen. xxi. The other three passages, in which we meet with the word, seem also to involve in them the notion of a considerable quantity, though very much short of a goat-skin full.

b

Pitcher often appears in our version, but tzappachaths is the Hebrew term, I apprehend, that properly denotes what we mean by a pitcher, though our translators always render it cruse, which, it seems, signifies a small cup, or perhaps a cruet; but neither of those terms, one would think, accurately expresses the meaning of the word: a small cup would not be a proper vessel for the keeping oil in, and a cruet is not of a capacity to contain water enough for the refreshment of a prophet, faint with journeying in an Eastern desart. As a pitcher answers all uses a tzappachath appears to have been put to, so it is the vessel, on the outside of which, when made sufficiently hot,

Hos. vü, 5. Hab. ii. 15, and Job. xxi. 20.

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the Arabs bake one species of their bread, and tzappichath signifies a wafer, or thin cake, made with honey, Exod. xvi. 31.

Celub seems to signify a a basket not wrought close, but like a cage, for it apparently signifies a cage or coop, Jer. v. 27; and was very proper for cucumbers and melons, and such large fruits, which were too big to slip out between the twigs; and accordingly we find the celub was used for summer fruits, Amos viii. 1, 2.

Dud mentioned under the preceding Observation, I am inclined to think, signifies on the contrary, a close-wrought basket. It is very variously translated in our version: basket, Jer. xxiv. 2; kettle, I Sam. ii. 14; pot, Job xli. 20; and caldron, 2 Chron, xxxv. 13. According to Psalm. Ixxxi. the dud was used by the Israelites in their Egyptian labours, and though we translate the word there pots, it should seem to mean baskets; and so Sir. J. Chardin in his MS. note on the place, supposes them to be baskets, in which, he tells us, "the Eastern people put their mortar, instead of those wooden hods used by masons in our country. If they use baskets for this purpose, they must be close-wrought, or the mortar would drop through; and this seems to be the circumstan cethat distinguished it from the celub.

• Voy. dans la Pal. p. 192, 193.

This is also the custom in China: a close-wrought basket of bamboo, with the handle hung over the arm, is the substitute there for a hod. EDIT.

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