{,'
it occurs only in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk 16--- '■"j, where it apiiears both in the singular (KiX^os 'A/Spact^) and in the plural [aiXiroi 'AjJpad/j.). Taken from the practice of reclining at table, so that the hea,d of the guest leant back upon t he bosom of his neighbour, the place of distinction belonging to hirti who was seated in this way next the liost, the figure expresses the ideas of nearest rullowship and highest honour. In the Kabbin. literature the phrase (i:"3k cn-cK Sc ip-n) was applied to tlie place reserved for the pious departed, into which they passed immediately after death, and in wliich they dwelt free from the woes of hell (cf. 4 Mac 13"). It was a Jewish belief that the intermediate state contained two distinct compart- ments— a place of relative prejiaratory rewara for the good, and a place of relative preparatory penalty for the evil (cf. Bk of Enoch 22, 2 Es •16ft. etc.). Some of the Jewish books speak of certain receptacles (promptuaria) into which the souls of the faithful dead were taken (Apoc. of Bar 30-, 2 Es 4*'- " 7*" etc. ). And in the theology of the 3rd cent, and onwards it was taught that the circumcised should not be subject to hell. It was a saying of Rabbi Levi (of the 3rd cent.), that in the world to come Abraham would sit at the entrance to hell, and suffer no circumcised Isr. to pass into it. It has been usually supposed, there- fore;, that in NT the phrase 'Abraiiam's bosom' refers to the intermed. state, and designates a division of the undenvorld, where the good enjoy a preliminary measure of blessedness. In this case it is identified with Paradise, the lower Paradise as dist. from the heavenly, or is taken to describe a condition of peculiar honour in the Hades- Paradise. It is uncertain, however, when this idea of two separate localities within the undervvorld came to revail. It was the idea of the later and medioeval udaism. But whether it was in circulation so early as our Lord's time is doubtful. There seems reason to believe that the older Judaism spoke only of a Garden of Eden for the righteous dead, and a Gehinnom (Gehenna, Hell) for the wicked dead, identifying the latter with SAeo/. If so, 'Abraham's bosom in the parable would not be the name for a special compartment of Hades, or for an intermed. condition of blessedness distinct from and pre- liminary to the final state of perfect felicity. And in the parable itself it is only the rich man that ia expressly described as 'in Hades.'
LrrEBATUBB.— Wetst€in on Lk 1621 S3; Lifrhtfoot, Hot. Beb. p. 851, etc. ; Fritzsche u. Grimm, Ext'tj. Handb. zu den Apocry- phni, on 4 Mac 1316; Schiirer, UJt" II. ii. 180; Hamburger, HE; Weber, Syetem der altnyn. paUisl. Theol. p. S2S ; Meyer- Weisa, Kmn.i p. 543, etc ; S&lmoDd, Chritt. Doct. qf Imnior- tality, p. 346.
S. D. F. Salmond. ABRECH (^-inK).— A word called out before Joseph as he passed through the land of Egypt in his ofllcial capacity of prime minister to the Pharaoh ((in 41"). Its exact signification ia not a matter of agieement amongst scholars. The LXX (tKipvitv lp.Trpoaeei> airov K-qpu^) and the Vulg. {clamante prcccone, lit omnes coram eo genu flecterent) are not literal or direct translations. The Targ. of Onk. interprets it as ' father of the king,' on the ground possiblv of Gn 45'. Jewish scholars who have derived it from Heb. refer it to the root tii; bend the knee, in the Hiph. Imv., where, for the usual n, an K has l>een substituted (cf. Jer 25'). Luther regarded the case as hopeless, in saying, 'Was ahrec/t heisse, lassen wir die Ziincker suchen bisz an den jiingsten Tag' (Ges. Thes. p. 19). Of the many proposed Egyp. (and Coptic) derivations, we need note only the following :—(!) Abrek (oTrpe/c) caput inclinare (Rossi, Etyinnl. cegypt. p. 1, in Ges. Thci. p. 19) ; (2) ap-rex-v, heiidofthe wise (Harkavv, Ikrl. yEgypt. Zeitschr. 1869, p. 132) ; (3) ab-rck, rejoice thou (Cook, Speaker's Com. in loco, p. 482) ;
(4) ab{u)-rek, thy commandment is the object of our desire, i.e. 'we are at thy service' (Renouf, Pro- ceedings Soc. Bib. Arch. Nov. 1888, pp. 5-10). On the other hand, several derivations are suggested from the Asiatic-Sem. side: (1) Sayce compares it with an ' Accadian ' abrik, a seer, appearing also in the Sem. form, on an unpublished tablet, of abrikku (Hibbert Lectures, 18S7, p. 183, n. 3) ; (2) Delitzsch compares the Assyr. abarakku (fem. ab(a)rakkatu), a titled personage, possibly orajirf vizier (Paradies, p. 225 ; Beb. Lang. p. 26 ; Proleg. p. 145; and Assyr. Worterbuch, p. 68 f.); (3) Schrader dissents from Delitzsch (COT* i. , 139) ; (4) HaJivy derives it from paraku (Rev. d. Etudes Juives, 1885, p. 304). But of all the suggested sources of this much-abused word, the Heb. and the Assyr. above mentioned seem to carry with them the least number of difficulties. (The text of Gn 41*"- does not indicate that there was any- thing more than a salute. ) It is, in either event, an Egyptianised Sem. word, probably carried down into E^pt during the centuries of Hyksos rule. This opinion receives support, too, from tne evidence of the Tel el-Amama tablets that there had been for many centuries before Joseph's day free inter- national communication between Egypt and Asia.