Night-Monster – Nimshi

Night-Monster

nit'-mon-ster (lilith; Septuagint onokentauros; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) lamia):

I. THE ACCEPTED TRANSLATION

1. Professor Rogers' Statement

2. Exception to the Statement

II. FOLKLORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

1. Paucity of References

2. References in Highly Poetical Passages

3. The References Allusive

4. Possibility of Non-mythological Interpretation

5. The Term Lilith.

I. The Accepted Translation.

The term "night-monster"' is a hypothetical translation of the Hebrew term lilith, used once only, in Isaiah 34:14. The word is translated in the King James Version "screech-owl," margin "night monster," the Revised Version (British and American) "night-monster," margin "Lilith." The term "night-monster" is also an interpretation, inasmuch as it implies that the Hebrew word is a Babylonian loan-word, and that the reference indicates a survival of primitive folklore.

1. Professor Rogers' Statement:

Concerning this weird superstition, and its strange, single appearance in the Book of Isaiah, Professor Rogers has this to say: "The lil, or ghost, was a night-demon of terrible and baleful influence upon men, and only to be cast out with many incantations. The lil was attended by a serving maid, the ardat lili ("maid of night"), which in the Semitic development was transferred into the feminine lilitu. It is most curious and interesting to observe that this ghost-demon lived on through the history of the Babylonian religion, and was carried out into the Hebrew religion, there to find one single mention in the words of one of the Hebrew prophets" (Religions of Assyria and Babylonia, 76, 77).

2. Exception to the Statement:

Exception is to be taken to this statement, admitting the etymological assumption upon which it rests, that "lilith" is a word in mythology, on the ground that the conception of a night-demon has no place in the religion of the Hebrews as exhibited in the Scriptures. It is certainly worthy of more than passing notice that a conception which is very prominent in the Babylonian mythology, and is worked out with great fullness of doctrinal and ritualistic detail, has, among the Hebrews, so far receded into the background as to receive but one mention in the Bible, and that a bald citation without detail in a highly poetic passage.

The most that can possibly be said, with safety, is that if the passage in Isa is to be taken as a survival of folklore, it is analogous to those survivals of obsolete ideas still to be found in current speech, and in the literature of the modern world (see LUNATIC). There is no evidence of active participation in this belief, or even of interest in it as such, on the part of the prophetical writer. On the contrary, the nature of the reference implies that the word was used simply to add a picturesque detail to a vivid, imaginative description. All positive evidence of Hebrew participation in this belief belongs to a later date (see Buxtorf's Lexicon, under the word "Talmud").

II. Folklore in the Old Testament.

Attention has been called elsewhere to the meagerness, in the matter of detail, of Old Testament demonology (see DEMON, DEMONOLOGY; COMMUNION WITH DEMONS). A kindred fact of great importance should be briefly noticed here, namely, that the traces of mythology and popular folklore in the Bible are surprisingly faint and indistinct. We have the following set of items in which such traces have been discovered: "Rahab" (rachabh), mentioned in Job 9:13; Job 26:12; Isaiah 51:9; "Tanin" (tannin), Isaiah 27:1; "Leviathan" (liwyathan), Job 3:8; Psalms 74:14; Isaiah 27:1; Ezekiel 29:3; Job 41:1–34 passim; the "serpent in the sea," in Amos 9:3; "Seirim" (se`irim), 2 Chronicles 11:15; Leviticus 17:7; 2 Kings 23:8; Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14; "Alukah" (`aluqah), Proverbs 30:15; "Azazel (`aza'zel) Leviticus 16:8,Leviticus 16:10,Leviticus 16:26 "Lilith" (ut sup.), Isaiah 34:14,Isaiah 34:15.when disturbed in brooding or raising its young. Its habit was to lie on its back and fight with beak and claw with such ferocity that it seemed very possible that it would "tear and scratch the face." Some commentators insist that the bird intended was an owl, but for the above reasons the night-jar seems most probable; also several members of the owl family were clearly indicated in the list.

A review of these passages brings certain very interesting facts to light.

1. Paucity of References:

The references are few in number. Rahab is mentioned 3 times; Tannin (in this connection), once; Leviathan, 5 times; the serpent in the sea, once; Seirim, 5 times (twice with references to idols); Alukah, once; Azazel, 3 times in one chapter and in the same connection; Lilith, once.

2. References in Highly Poetical Passages:

These references, with the single exception of Azazel to which we shall return a little later, are all in highly poetical passages. On general grounds of common-sense we should not ascribe conscious and deliberate mythology to writers or speakers of the Bible in passages marked by imaginative description and poetic imagery, any more than we should ascribe such beliefs to modern writers under like circumstances. Poetry is the realm of truth and not of matter of fact. In passages of this tenor, mythology may explain the word itself and justify its appropriateness, it does not explain the use of the term or disclose the personal view of the writer. 3. The References Allusive:

All these references are in the highest degree allusive. They exhibit no exercise of the mythological fancy and have received no embroidery with details. This is most significant. So far as our specific references are concerned, we are dealing with petrified mythology, useful as literary embellishment, but no longer interesting in itself.

4. Possibility of Non-mythological Interpretation:

Every one of these words is sufficiently obscure in origin and uncertain in meaning to admit the possibility of a non-mythological interpretation; indeed, in several of the parallels a non-mythological use is evident. Bible-Dict. writers are apt to say (e.g. concerning lilith) that there is no doubt concerning the mythological reference. The reader may discover for himself that the lexicographers are more cautious (see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, in the place cited.). The use of "Rahab" in Job 26:12 is not mythological for the simple reason that it is figurative; the use of "Leviathan" in Isaiah 27:1 and Ezekiel 29:3 comes under the same category. In Job 40:1–24 and 41, if the identification of behemoth and leviathan with hippopotamus and crocodile be allowed to stand and the mythological significance of the two be admitted, we have the stage where mythology has become a fixed and universal symbolism which can be used to convey truth apart from the belief in it as reality (see LEVIATHAN; "Job," New Century Bible, p. 335; Meth. Rev., May, 1913, 429 ff). The sea serpent of Amos 9:3 is not necessarily the dragon or Tiamat, and the use of the term is merely suggestive. The term se`ir is in literal use for "he-goat" (Numbers 15:24, et al.) and is doubtful throughout. Ewald translates it "he-goat" in Isaiah 34:14 and "Satyr" in 13:21. It means literally "shaggy monster" (Vulgate, pilosus). We do not hesitate on the basis of the evidence to erase "Alukah" (Proverbs 30:15, the Revised Version (British and American) "horse-leech," by some translated "vampire") and "Azazel" (Leviticus 16:8, etc.), interpreted as a "demon of the desert," from the list of mythological words altogether. As ripe a scholar as Perowne ("Proverbs," Cambridge Bible) combats the idea of vampire, and Kellogg ("Leviticus," Expositor's Bible, in the place cited.) has simply put to rout the mythological-demonic interpretation of Azazel. Even in the case of lilith the derivation is obscure, and the objections urged against the demonic idea by Alexander have not altogether lost their force (see Commentary on Isaiah, in the place cited.). There is a close balance of probabilities in one direction or the other.

5. The Term Lilith:

One further fact with regard to lilith must be considered. The term occurs in a list of creatures, the greater part of which are matter-of-fact animals or birds. A comparative glance at a half-dozen translates of the passage Isaiah 34:11–14 will convince any reader that there are a great many obscure and difficult words to be found in the list. Following Delitzsch's translation we have: "pelican," "hedge-hog," "horned-owl," "raven," "wild-dog," "ostrich," "forest-demon" (se`ir), "night-monster." This is a curious mixture of real and imaginary creatures. Alexander acutely observes that there is too much or too little mythology in the passage. One of two conclusions would seem to follow from a list so constructed: Either all these creatures are looked upon as more or less demonic (see Whitehouse, Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes), article "Demon," with which compare West M. Alexander, Demonic Possession in the New Testament, 16), or, as seems to the present writer far more probable, none in the list is considered otherwise than as supposed literal inhabitants of the wilderness. The writer of Isaiah 34:14, who was not constructing a scientific treatise, but using his imagination, has constructed a list in which are combined real and imaginary creatures popularly supposed to inhabit unpeopled solitudes. There still remains a by no means untenable supposition that none of the terms necessarily are mythological in this particular passage.

Louis Matthews Sweet

Night-Watch

nit'-woch 'ashmurah ba-laylah, "watch in the night"): One of the three or four divisions of the night.

See WATCH; TIME.

Nile

nil (Neilos, meaning not certainly known; perhaps refers to the color of the water, as black or blue. This name does not occur in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or in the English translation):

I. THE NILE IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

1. Description

2. Geological Origin

3. The Making of Egypt

4. The Inundation

5. The Infiltration

II. THE NILE IN HISTORY

1. The Location of Temples

2. The Location of Cemeteries

3. The Damming of the Nile

4. Egyptian Famines

III. THE NILE IN RELIGION

1. The Nile as a God

2. The Nile in the Osirian Myth

3. The Celestial Nile

A river of North Africa, the great river of Egypt. The name employed in the Old Testament to designate the Nile is in the Hebrew ye'or, Egyptian aur, earlier, atur, usually translated "river," also occasionally "canals" (Psalms 78:44; Ezekiel 29:3). In a general way it means all the water of Egypt. The Nile is also the principal river included in the phrase nahare kush, "rivers of Ethiopia" (Isaiah 18:1). Poetically the Nile is called yam, "sea" (Job 41:31; Nahum 3:8; probably Isaiah 18:2), but this is not a name of the river. shichor, not always written fully, has also been interpreted in a mistaken way of the Nile (see SHIHOR). Likewise nahar mitsrayim, "brook of Egypt," a border stream in no way connected with the Nile, has sometimes been mistaken for that river.

See RIVER OF EGYPT.

I. The Nile in Physical Geography.

1. Description:

The Nile is formed by the junction of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in latitude 15 degree 45' North and longitude 32 degree 45' East. The Blue Nile rises in the highlands of Abyssinia, latitude 12 degree 30' North, long. 35 degree East, and flows Northwest 850 miles to its junction with the White North. The White Nile, the principal branch of the North, rises in Victoria Nyanza, a great lake in Central Africa, a few miles North of the equator, long. 33 degree East (more exactly the Nile may be said to rise at the headwaters of the Ragera River, a small stream on the other side of the lake, 3 degree South of the equator), and flows North in a tortuous channel, 1,400 miles to its junction with the Blue Nile. From this junction-point the Niles flows North through Nubia and Egypt 1,900 miles and empties into the Mediterranean Sea, in latitude 32 degree North, through 2 mouths, the Rosetta, East of Alexandria, and the Damietta, West of Port Said. There were formerly 7 mouths scattered along a coast-line of 140 miles.

2. Geological Origin:

The Nile originated in the Tertiary period and has continued from that time to this, though by the subsidence of the land 220 ft. along the Mediterranean shore in the Pluvial times, the river was very much shortened. Later in the Pluvial times the land rose again and is still rising slowly.

3. The Making of Egypt:

Cultivable Egypt is altogether the product of the Nile, every particle of the soil having been brought down by the river from the heart of the continent and deposited along the banks and especially in the delta at the mouth of the river. The banks have risen higher and higher and extended farther and farther back by the deposit of the sediment, until the valley of arable land varies in width in most parts from 3 or 4 miles to 9 or 10 miles. The mouth of the river, after the last elevation of the land in Pluvial times, was at first not far from the latitude of Cairo. From this point northward the river has built up a delta of 140 miles on each side, over which it spreads itself and empties into the sea through its many mouths.

4. The Inundation:

The, watering of Egypt by the inundation from the Nile is the most striking feature of the physical character of that land, and one of the most interesting and remarkable physical phenomena in the world. The inundation is produced by the combination of an indirect and a direct cause. The indirect cause is the rain and melting snow on the equatorial mountains in Central Africa, which maintains steadily a great volume of water in the White Nile. The direct cause is torrential rains in the highlands of Abyssinia which send down the Blue Nile a sudden great increase in the volume of water. The inundation has two periods each year. The first begins about July 15 and continues until near the end of September. After a slight recession, the river again rises early in October in the great inundation. High Nile is in October, 25 to 30 ft., low Nile in June, about 12 1/2 ft. The Nilometer for recording the height of the water of inundation dates from very early times. Old Nilometers are found still in situ at Edfu and Assuan. The watering and fertilizing of the land is the immediate effect of the inundation; its ultimate result is that making of Egypt which is still in progress. The settling of the sediment from the water upon the land has raised the surface of the valley about 1 ft. in 300 to 400 years, about 9 to 10 ft. near Cairo since the beginning of the early great temples. The deposit varies greatly at other places. As the deposit of sediment has been upon the bottom of the river, as well as upon the surface of the land, though more slowly, on account of the swiftness of the current, the river also has been lifted up, and thus the inundation has extended farther and farther to the East, and the West, as the level of the valley would permit, depositing the sediment and thus making the cultivable land wider, as well as the soil deeper, year by year. At Heliopolis, a little North of Cairo, this extension to the East has been 3 to 4 miles since the building of the great temple there.

At Luxor, about 350 miles farther up the river, where the approach toward the mountains is much steeper, the extension of the good soil to the East and the West is inconsiderable.

5. The Infiltration:

The ancient Egyptians were right in calling all the waters of Egypt the Nile, for wherever water is obtained by digging it is simply the Nile percolating through the porous soil. This percolation is called the infiltration of the Nile. It always extends as far on either side of the Nile as the level of the water in the river at the time will permit. This infiltration, next to the inundation, is the most important physical phenomenon in Egypt. By means of it much of the irrigation of the land during the dry season is carried on from wells. It has had its influence also in the political and religious changes of the country (compare below).

II. The Nile in History.

1. The Location of Temples:

Some of the early temples were located near the Nile, probably because of the deification of the river. The rising of the surface of the land, and at the same time of the bed of the river, from the inundation lifted both Egypt and its great river, but left the temples down at the old level. In time the infiltration of the river from its new higher level reached farther and farther and rose to a higher level until the floor of these old temples was under water even at the time of lowest Nile, and then gods and goddesses, priests and ceremonial all were driven out. At least two of the greatest temples and most sacred places, Heliopolis and Memphis, had to be abandoned. Probably this fact had as much to do with the downfall of Egypt's religion, as its political disasters and the actual destruction of its temples by eastern invaders. Nature's God had driven out the gods of Nature.

2. The Location of Cemeteries:

Some prehistoric burials are found on the higher ground, as at Kefr `Amar. A thousand years of history would be quite sufficient to teach Egyptians that the Nile was still making Egypt. Thenceforth, cemeteries were located at the mountains on the eastern and the western boundaries of the valley. Here they continue to this day, for the most part still entirely above the waters of the inundation--and usually above the reach of the infiltration.

3. The Damming of the Nile:

The widening of the cultivable land by means of long canals which carried the water from far up the river to levels higher than that of the inundation, farther down the river was practiced from very early times. The substitution of dams for long canals was reserved for modern engineering skill. Three great dams have been made: the first a little Nile of Cairo, the greatest at Assuan, and the last near Asyut.

4. Egyptian Famines:

Famines in Egypt are always due to failure in the quantity of the waters of inundation. Great famines have not been frequent. The cause of the failure in the water of inundation is now believed to be not so much a lack of the water of inundation from the Blue Nile as the choking of the channel of the White Nile in the great marsh land of the Sudan by the sud, a kind of sedge, sometimes becoming such a tangled mass as to close the channel and impede the flow of the regular volume of water so that the freshet in the Blue Nile causes but little inundation at the usual time, and during the rest of the year the Nile is so low from the same cause that good irrigation by canals and wells is impossible. A channel through the sud is now kept open by the Egyptian government.

III. The Nile in Religion.

One of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon was Hapi, the Nile. In early times it divided the honors with Ra, the sun-god. No wonder it was so.

1. The Nile as a God:

If the Egyptians set out to worship Nature-gods at all, surely then the sun and the Nile first.

2. The Nile in Osirian Myth:

The origin of the Osirian myth is still much discussed. Very much evidence, perhaps conclusive evidence, can be adduced to prove that it rose originally from the Nile; that Osiris was first of all the Nile, then the water of the Nile, then the soil, the product of the waters of the Nile, and then Egypt, the Nile and all that it produced.

3. The Celestial Nile:

Egypt was the Egyptian's little world, and Egypt was the Nile. It was thus quite natural for the Egyptians in considering the celestial world to image it in likeness of their own world with a celestial Nile flowing through it. It is so represented in the mythology, but the conception of the heavens is vague.

M. G. Kyle

Nimrah; Beth-Nimrah

nim'-ra (nimrah; Codex Vaticanus Nambra; Codex Alexandrinus Ambram), or (beth nimrah; Codex Vaticanus Namram; Codex Alexandria Ambran (Numbers 32:36); Codex Vaticanus Baithanabra; Codex Alexandrinus Bethamna (Joshua 13:27)): These two names evidently refer to the same place; but there is no reason to think, as some have done, from the similarity of the names, that it is identical with NIMRIM (which see). On the contrary, the indications of the passages cited point to a site East of the Jordan valley and Nimrah of the Dead Sea. About 11 miles Northeast of the mouth of the Jordan, where Wady Nimrin, coming down from the eastern up-lands, enters the plain, stands a hill called Tell Nimrin, with tombs and certain traces of ancient building. This may be certainly identified with Nimrah and Beth-nimrah; and it corresponds to Bethnambris of Eusebius, Onomasticon, which lay 5 Roman miles Nimrah of Livias.

W. Ewing

Nimrim

nim'-rim (me nimrim; Codex Vaticanus Nebrein; Codex Alexandrinus Ebrim (Jeremiah 48:34); to hudor tes Nimreim (Isaiah 15:6)): The meaning appears to be "pure" or "wholesome water." The name occurs only in Isaiah 15:6 and Jeremiah 48:34 in oracles against Moab. In each case it is mentioned in association with Zoar and Horonaim. It is therefore probably to be sought to the Southeast of the Dead Sea. Eusebius, Onomasticon, places a town, Bennamareim, to the Nimrim of Zoar, and identifies it with the Old Testament "Nimrim," as it seems, correctly. The name is still found in Wady Numeireh, opening on the sea at Burj Numeirah, Nimrim of Ghor es-Safiyeh. The waters of Nimrim may be sought either in Moiyet Numeirah or in the spring higher up, where lie the ruins of a town in a well-watered and fruitful district (Buhl, GAP, 272).

W. Ewing

Nimrod

nim'-rod (nimrodh; Nebrod): A descendant of Ham, mentioned in "the generations of the sons of Noah" (Genesis 10:1–32; compare 1 Chronicles 1:10) as a son of Cush. He established his kingdom "in the land of Shinar," including the cities "Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh" (Genesis 10:10), of which only Babel, or Babylon, and Erech, or Uruk, have been identified with certainty. "The land of Shinar" is the old name for Southern Babylonia, afterward called Chaldea ('erets kasdim), and was probably more extensive in territory than the Sumer of the inscriptions in the ancient royal title, "King of Shumer and Accad," since Accad is included here in Shinar. Nimrod, like other great kings of Mesopotamian lands, was a mighty hunter, possibly the mightiest and the prototype of them all, since to his name had attached itself the proverb: "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh" (Genesis 10:9). In the primitive days of Mesopotamia, as also in Palestine, wild animals were so numerous that they became a menace to life and property (Exodus 23:29; Leviticus 26:22); therefore the king as benefactor and protector of his people hunted these wild beasts. The early conquest of the cities of Babylonia, or their federation into one great kingdom, is here ascribed to Nimrod. Whether the founding and colonization of Assyria (Genesis 10:11) are to be ascribed to Nimrod will be determined by the exegesis of the text. English Versions of the Bible reads: "Out of that land he (i.e. Nimrod) went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh," etc., this translation assigning the rise of Assyria to Nimrod, and apparently being sustained by Micah 5:5,Micah 5:6 (compare J. M. P. Smith, "Micah," ICC, in the place cited.); but American Revised Version, margin renders: "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh," which translation is more accurate exegetically and not in conflict with Micah 5:6, if in the latter "land of Nimrod" be understood, not as parallel with, but as supplemental to, Assyria, and therefore as Babylon (compare commentaries of Cheyne, Pusey, S. Clark, in the place cited.).

Nimrod has not been identified with any mythical hero or historic king of the inscriptions. Some have sought identification with Gilgamesh, the flood hero of Babylonia (Skinner, Driver, Delitzsch); others with a later Kassite king (Haupt, Hilprecht), which is quite unlikely; but the most admissible correspondence is with Marduk, chief god of Babylon, probably its historic founder, just as Asshur, the god of Assyria, appears in verse 11 as the founder of the Assyrian empire (Wellhausen, Price, Sayce). Lack of identification, however, does not necessarily indicate mythical origin of the name.

See ASTRONOMY, sec. II, 11; BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, RELIGION OF, IV, 7; MERODACH; ORION.

Edward Mack

Nimshi

nim'-shi (nimshi): The grandfather of Jehu (2 Kings 9:2,2 Kings 9:14). Jehu's usual designation is "son of Nimshi" (1 Kings 19:16).