No-Amon – Nym Phas

No-Amon

(temple of Amon) (Nahum 3:8) No, (Jeremiah 46:25; Ezekiel 30:14,16) a city of Egypt, better known under the name of Thebes or Diospolis Magna, the ancient and splendid metropolis of upper Egypt The second part of the first form as the name of Amen , the chief divinity of Thebes, mentioned or alluded to in connection with this place in Jeremiah. There is a difficulty as to the meaning of No. It seems most reasonable to suppose that No is a Shemitic name and that Amen is added in Nahum (l.c.) to distinguish Thebes from some other place bearing the same name or on account of the connection of Amen with that city. The description of No-amon as "situated among the rivers, the waters round about it" (Nah. l.c.), remarkably characterizes Thebes. (It lay on both sides of the Nile, and was celebrated for its hundred gates, for its temples, obelisks, statues. etc. It was emphatically the city of temples, in the ruins of which many monuments of ancient Egypt are preserved, The plan of the city was a parallelogram, two miles from north to south and four from east to west, but none suppose that in its glory if really extended 33 miles along both aides of the Nile. Thebes was destroyed by Ptolemy, B.C. 81, and since then its population has dwelt in villages only. --ED.)

Noah

(motion), one of the five daughters of Zelophehad. (Numbers 26:33; 27:1; 36:11; Joshua 17:3) (B.C. 1450.)

Noah

(rest), the tenth in descent from Adam, in the line of Seth was the son of Lamech and grandson of Methuselah. (B.C. 2948-1998.) We hear nothing of Noah till he is 500 years old when It is said he begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. In consequence of the grievous and hopeless wickedness of the world at this time, God resolved to destroy it. Of Noah’s life during this age of almost universal apostasy we are told but little. It is merely said that he was a righteous man and perfect in his generations (i.e. among his contemporaries), and that he, like Enoch, walked with God. St. Peter calls him "a preacher of righteousness." (2 Peter 2:5) Besides this we are merely told that he had three: sons each of whom had married a wife; that he built the ark in accordance with divine direction; end that he was 600 years old when the flood came. (Genesis 6:7) The ark . --The precise meaning of the Hebrew word (tebah) is uncertain. The word occurs only in Genesis and in (Exodus 2:3) In all probability it is to the old Egyptian that we are to look for its original form. Bunsen, in his vocabulary gives tba , "a chest," tpt , "a boat," and in the Coptic version of (Exodus 2:3,5) thebi is the rendering of tebah . This "chest" or "boat" was to be made of gopher (i.e. cypress) wood, a kind of timber which both for its lightness and its durability was employed by the Phoenicians for building their vessels. The planks of the ark, after being put together were to be protected by a coating of pitch, or rather bitumen, both inside and outside, to make it water-tight, and perhaps also as a protection against the attacks of marine animals. The ark was to consist of a number of "nests" or small compartments, with a view, no doubt, to the convenient distribution of the different animals and their food. These were to be arranged in three tiers, one above another; "with lower, second and third (stories) shalt thou make it." Means were also to be provided for letting light into the ark. There was to be a door this was to be placed in the side of the ark. Of the shape of the ark nothing is said, but its dimensions are given. It was to be 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth and 30 in height. Taking 21 inches for the cubit, the ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet 6 inches in breadth and 52 feet 6 inches in height. This is very considerably larger than the largest British man-of-war, but not as large as some modern ships. It should be remembered that this huge structure was only intended to float on the water, and was not in the proper sense of the word a ship. It had neither mast, sail nor rudder it was in fact nothing but an enormous floating house, or rather oblong box. The inmates of the ark were Noah and his wife and his three sons with their wives. Noah was directed to take also animals of all kinds into the ark with him, that they might be preserved alive. (The method of speaking of the animals that were taken into the ark "clean" and "unclean," implies that only those which were useful to man were preserved, and that no wild animals were taken into the ark; so that there is no difficulty from the great number of different species of animal life existing in the word. --ED.) The flood . --The ark was finished, and all its living freight was gathered into it as a place of safety. Jehovah shut him in, says the chronicler, speaking of Noah; and then there ensued a solemn pause of seven days before the threatened destruction was let loose. At last the before the threatened destruction was flood came; the waters were upon the earth. A very simple but very powerful and impressive description is given of the appalling catastrophe. The waters of the flood increased for a period of 190 days (40+150, comparing) (Genesis 7:12) and Genesis7:24 And then "God remembered Noah" and made a wind to pass over the earth, so that the waters were assuaged. The ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month on the mountains of Ararat. After this the waters gradually decreased till the first day of the tenth month, when the tops of the mountains were seen but Noah and his family did not disembark till they had been in the ark a year and a month and twenty days. Whether the flood was universal or partial has given rise to much controversy; but there can be no doubt that it was universal, so far as man was concerned: we mean that it extended to all the then known world . The literal truth of the narrative obliges us to believe that the whole human race , except eight persons, perished by the flood. The language of the book of Genesis does not compel us to suppose that the whole surface of the globe was actually covered with water, if the evidence of geology requires us to adopt the hypothesis of a partial deluge. It is natural to suppose it that the writer, when he speaks of "all flesh," "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life" refers only to his own locality. This sort of language is common enough in the Bible when only a small part of the globe is intended. Thus, for instance, it is said that "all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn and that" a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." The truth of the biblical narrative is confirmed by the numerous traditions of other nations, which have preserved the memory of a great and destructive flood, from which but a small part of mankind escaped. They seem to point back to a common centre whence they were carried by the different families of man as they wandered east and west. The traditions which come nearest to the biblical account are those of the nations of western Asia. Foremost among these is the Chaldean. Other notices of a flood may be found in the Phoenician mythology. There is a medal of Apamea in Phrygia, struck as late as the time of Septimius Severus, in which the Phrygian deluge is commemorated. This medal represents a kind of a square vessel floating in the water. Through an opening in it are seen two persons, a man and a woman. Upon the top of this chest or ark is perched a bird, whilst another flies toward it carrying a branch between its feet. Before the vessel are represented the same pair as having just, quitted it and got upon the dry land. Singularly enough, too, on some specimens of this medal the letters NO or NOE have been found on the vessel, as in the cut on p. 454. (Tayler Lewis deduces the partial extent of the flood from the very face of the Hebrew text." "Earth," where if speaks of "all the earth," often is, and here should be, translated "land," the home of the race, from which there appears to have been little inclination to wander. Even after the flood God had to compel them to disperse. "Under the whole heavens" simply includes the horizon reaching around "all the land" the visible horizon. We still use the words in the same sense and so does the Bible. Nearly all commentators now agree on the partial extent of the deluge. If is probable also that the crimes and violence of the previous age had greatly diminished the population, and that they would have utterly exterminated the race had not God in this way saved out some good seed from their destruction. So that the flood, by appearing to destroy the race, really saved the world from destruction .--ED.) (The scene of the deluge --Hugh Miller, in his "Testimony of the Rocks," argues that there is a remarkable portion of the globe, chiefly on the Asiatic continent, though it extends into Europe, and which is nearly equal to all Europe in extent, whose rivers (some of them the Volga, Oural, Sihon, Kour and the Amoo, of great size) do not fall into the ocean, but, on the contrary are all turned inward, losing themselves in the eastern part of the tract, in the lakes of a rainless district in the western parts into such seas as the Caspian and the Aral. In this region there are extensive districts still under the level of the ocean. Vast plains white with salt and charged with sea-shells, show that the Caspian Sea was at no distant period greatly more extensive than it is now. With the well-known facts, then, before us regarding this depressed Asiatic region, let us suppose that the human family, still amounting to several millions, though greatly reduced by exterminating wars and exhausting vices, were congregated in that tract of country which, extending eastward from the modern Ararat to far beyond the Sea of Aral, includes the original Caucasian centre of the race. Let us suppose that, the hour of judgment having arrived, the land began gradually to sink (as the tract in the Run of Cutch sank in the year 1819) equably for forty days at the rate of about 400 feet per day a rate not twice greater than that at which the tide rises in the Straits of Magellan, and which would have rendered itself apparent as but a persistent inward flowing of the sea. The depression, which, by extending to the Euxine Sea and the Persian Gulf on the one hand and the Gulf of Finland on the other, would open up by three separate channels the "fountains of the great deep," and which included an area of 2000 miles each way, would, at the end of the fortieth day, be sunk in its centre to the depth of 16,000 feet, --sufficient to bury the loftiest mountains of the district; and yet, having a gradient of declination of but sixteen feet per mile, the contour of its hills and plains would remain apparently what they had been before, and the doomed inhabitants would, but the water rising along the mountain sides, and one refuge after another swept away. -ED.) After the Flood . --Noah’s great act after he left the ark was to build an altar and to offer sacrifices. This is the first altar of which we read in Scripture, and the first burnt sacrifice. Then follows the blessing of God upon Noah and his sons. Noah is clearly the head of a new human family, the representative of the whole race. It is as such that God makes his covenant with him; and hence selects a natural phenomenon as the sign of that covenant. The bow in the cloud, seen by every nation under heaven, is an unfailing witness to the truth of God. Noah now for the rest of his life betook himself to agricultural pursuits. It is particularly noticed that he planted a vineyard. Whether in ignorance of its properties or otherwise we are not informed, but he drank of the juice of the grape till he became intoxicated and shamefully exposed himself in his own tent. One of sons, Ham, mocked openly at his father’s disgrace. The others, with dutiful care and reverence, endeavored to hide it. When he recovered from the effects of his intoxication, he declared that a curse should rest upon the sons of Ham. With the curse on his youngest son was joined a blessing on the other two. After this prophetic blessing we hear no more of the patriarch but the sum of his years, 950.

Nob

(high place) (1 Samuel 22:19; Nehemiah 11:32) a sacerdotal city in the tribe of Benjamin and situated on some eminence near Jerusalem. It was one of the places where the ark of Jehovah was kept for a time during the days of its wanderings. (2 Samuel 6:1) etc. But the event for which Nob was most noted in the Scripture annals was a frightful massacre which occurred there in the reign of Saul. (1 Samuel 22:17-19)

Nobah

(barking), an Israelite warrior, (Numbers 32:42) who during the conquest of the territory on the east of Jordan possessed himself of the town of Kenath and the villages or hamlets dependent upon it, and gave them his own name. (B.C.1450.) For a certain period after the establishment of the Israelite rule the new name remained, (Judges 8:11) but it is not again heard of, and the original appellation, as is usual in such cases, appears to have recovered its hold, has since retained; for in the slightly-modified form of Kunawat it is the name of the place to the present day.

Nod

(flight), the land to which Cain fled after the murder of Abel. [CAIN]

Nodab

(nobility), the name of an Arab tribe mentioned only in (1 Chronicles 6:19) in the account of the war of the Reubenites against the Hagarites. vs. 9-22. It is probable that Nodab, their ancestor, was the son of Ishmael, being mentioned with two of his other sons in the passage above cited, and was therefore a grandson of Abraham.

Nogah

(brightness), one of the thirteen sons of David who were born to him in Jerusalem, (1 Chronicles 3:7; 14:6) (B.C. 1050-1015.)

Nohah

(rest), the fourth son of Benjamin. (1 Chronicles 8:2)

Non

(fish). Nun, the father of Joshua. (1 Chronicles 7:27)

Noph

[MEMPHIS]

Nopha

(blast), a place mentioned only in (Numbers 21:30) in the remarkable song apparently composed by the Amorites after their conquest of Heshbon from the Moabites, and therefore of an earlier date than the Israelite invasion. It is named with Dibon and Medeba, and was possibly in the neighborhood of Heshbon. A name very similar to Nophah is Nobah, which is twice mentioned. Ewald decides that Nophah is identical with the latter of these.

Nose-Jewel

(Genesis 24:22; Exodus 35:22) "earing;" (Isaiah 3:21; Ezekiel 16:12) "jewel on the forehead," a ring of metal, sometimes of gold or silver, passed usually through the right nostril, and worn by way of ornament by women in the East. Upon it are strung beads, coral or jewels. In Egypt it is now almost confined to the lower classes.

Number

Like most Oriental nations, it is probable that the Hebrews in their written calculations made use of the letters of the alphabet. That they did so in post-Babylonian times we have conclusive evidence in the Maccabaean coins; and it is highly probable that this was the ease also in earlier times. But though, on the one hand, it is certain that in all existing MSS of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament the numerical expressions are written at length, yet, on the other, the variations in the several versions between themselves and from the Hebrew text, added to the evident inconsistencies in numerical statement between certain passages of that text itself seems to prove that some shorter mode of writing was originally in vogue, liable to be misunderstood, and in fact misunderstood by copyists and translators. These variations appear to have proceeded from the alphabetic method of writing numbers. There can be little doubt, however, that some at least of the numbers mentioned in Scripture are intended to be representative rather than determinative. Certain numbers, as 7,10,40,100, were regarded as giving the idea of completeness. Without entering into St. Augustine’s theory of this usage, we may remark that the notion of representative numbers in certain cases is one extremely common among eastern nations, who have a prejudice against counting their possessions accurately; that it enters largely into many ancient systems of chronology, and that it is found in the philosophical and metaphysical speculations not only of the Pythagorean and other ancient schools of philosophy, both Greek and Roman, but also in those of the later Jewish writers, of the Gnostics, and also of such Christian writers se St. Augustine himself. We proceed to give some instances of numbers used, (a) representatively, and thus probably by design indefinitely, or, (b) definitely, but, as we may say, preferentially, i.e. because some meaning (which we do not in all cases understand) was attached to them.

1. Seven as denoting either plurality or completeness, perhaps because seven days completed the week is so frequent as to make a selection only of instances necessary, e.g. seven fold (Genesis 4:24) seven times , i.e. completely, (Leviticus 26:24; Psalms 12:6) seven (i.e. many) ways, (28:25)

2. Ten as a preferential number is exemplified in the Ten Commandments and the law of tithe.

3. Seventy , as compounded of 7 X 10, appears frequently e.g. seventy fold. (Genesis 4:24; Matthew 18:22) Its definite use appears in the offerings of 70 shekels, (Numbers 7:13,19) ff,; the 70 elders, ch. (Numbers 11:16) 70 Years of captivity. (Jeremiah 25:11)

4. Five appears in the table of punishments, of legal requirements, (Exodus 22:1; Leviticus 5:16; 22:14; 27:15; Numbers 5:7; 18:16) and in the five empires of Daniel. (Daniel 2:1) ...

5. Four is used in reference to the 4 winds, (Daniel 7:2) and the so-called 4 corners of the earth; the creatures, each with 4 wings and 4 faces, of Ezekiel, (Ezekiel 1:5) ff.; 4 Rivers of Paradise (Genesis 2:10) 4 Beasts, (Daniel 7:1) ... and Reve 4:6 The 4 equal-sided temple-chamber. (Ezekiel 40:47)

6. Three was regarded, by both the Jews and other nations as a specially complete and mystic number.

7. Twelve (3X4) appears in 12 tribes 12 stones in the high priest’s breastplate, 12 apostles, 12 foundation-stones, and 12 gates. (Revelation 21:19-21)

8. Lastly, the mystic number 666. (Revelation 13:18)

Numbers

the fourth book of the law or Pentateuch. It takes its name in the LXX. and Vulgate (whence our "Numbers") from the double numbering or census of the people, the first of which is given in chs. 1-4, and the second in ch. 28. Contents . --The book may be said to contain generally the history of the Israelites from the time of their leaving Sinai, in the second year after the exodus till their arrival at the borders of the Promised land in the fortieth year of their journeyings It consists of the following principal divisions: 1, The Preparations for the departure from Sinai. (Numbers 1:1; Numbers 10:10)

1. The journey from Sinai to the borders of Canaan. ch. (Numbers 10:11; Numbers 14:45)

2. A brief notice of laws and events which transpired during the thirty-seven years wandering in the wilderness. ch. (Numbers 15:1; Numbers 19:22)

3. The history of the last year, from the second arrival of the Israelites in Kadesh till they reached "the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho." ch, (Numbers 20:1; Numbers 36:13) Integrity . --This, like the other books of the Pentateuch, is supposed by many critics to consist of a compilation from two or three or more earlier documents; but the grounds on which this distinction of documents rests are in every respect most unsatisfactory, and it may, in common with the preceding books and Deuteronomy, be regarded as the work of Moses. The book of Numbers is rich in fragments of ancient poetry, some of them of great beauty and all throwing an interesting light on the character of the times in which they were composed. Such, for instance, is the blessing of the high priest. ch. (Numbers 6:24-26) Such too are chants which were the signal for the ark to move when the people journeyed, and for it to rest when they were about to encamp. In ch. 21 we have a passage cited from a book called the "Book of the Wars of Jehovah." This was probably a collection of ballads and songs composed on different occasions by the watch-fires of the camp, and for the most part, though not perhaps exclusively, in commemoration of the victories of the Israelites over their enemies.

Nun

(fish , or posterity), the father of the Jewish captain Joshua. (Exodus 33:11) etc. His genealogical descent from Ephraim is recorded in (1 Chronicles 7:1) ... (B.C. before 1530.)

Nurse

In ancient times the position of the nurse, wherever one was maintained, was one of much honor sad importance. See (Genesis 24:59; 36;8; 2 Samuel 4:4; 2 Kings 11:2) The same term is applied to a foster-father or mother, e.g. (Numbers 11:12; Ruth 4:16; Isaiah 49:23)

Nuts

are mentioned among the good things of the things which the sons of Israel were to take as a present to Joseph in Egypt. (Genesis 43:11) There can scarcely be a doubt that the Hebrew word, here denotes the fruit of the pistachio tree (Pistacia vera), for Syria and Palestine have been long famous. In (Solomon 6:11) a different Hebrew word is translated "nuts." In all probability it here refers to the walnut tree . According to Josephus the walnut tree was formerly common and grew most luxuriantly around the Lake of Gennesareth.

Nym Phas

(bridegroom), a wealthy and zealous Christian in Laodicea. (Colossians 4:15) (A.D. 60.)