C0YET0OSNES8 The verb covet and its parts
are used in a wider .sense in the Scriptures than the noun covetousness, which has alw ays a reference to property, and is a rendering of the Heb. Vi? and the Gr. TrXtopt^la. In OT there are found frequent denunciations of this sin, which is brought into close connexion on the one hand with violence (Jer 2'2", Hab 2"), and on the other with fraud (Jer 8'°); and this connexion shows that action as well as desire to get another's goods is meant (Mie 2"). The forms of the sin singled out for rebuke are usurj-, seizing the land of the weak and poor, selling debtors into slavery, and taking bribes to pervert justice. The judges to be chosen by Moses were to be men 'hating unjust gain' (Ex 18'^). Covetousness brought ruin on Achan and his house (Jos 7''")- Samuel in laying down office asserted his innocence of this sin (1 S 12*).
Turning to NT, we find that Jesus warned men against covetousness, wherewith His opponents the Pharisees were charged (Lk 16"), and enforced His warning with the parable of the Rich Fool (Lk joia-si). St. Paul in several of his letters includes covetousness, which he calls idolatry (Col 3'), among the very worst sins (Ro l"", Epli 5', 1 Co 6'°). He had to defend himself against the charge of covetousness in connexion with the collection for the poor at Jerus. (I Th 2», 2 Co 8 ; cf. Ac 20^'). There were some teachers in the Church whose aim was worldly gain (2 P 2*) ; and accordingly one of the necessary qualificationsof a bishop was freedom from the love of money ( 1 Ti 3'). The remedy for covet- ousness as for the anxiety about food and raiment, which hinders undivided service (Mt C""**), is trust in God's fatherly care and abiding faithfulness (He 13°). Regarding the sense of 'covet' in the tenth commandment (Ex 20"), it is held by some that it includes not only the desire to have another's property, but also the effort to make it one's own (Schultz, O.T. Theol., Eng. tr. ii. p. 52). In Dt 5" with its more inward morality, only the desire may be referred to. In St. Paul's reference the inwardness of the law is asserted (Ro 7'). He might claim to be blameless in outward acts, but this command- ment convicted him of sinfulness in his wishes, not for gain simply, but also for other unlawful objects.
A. £. Garvie.
COW. — See Cattle.
COZBI Csi; 'deceitful,' Xairi9().— The Midianitess slain by Pliinehas (Nu 25"'- " P).
COZEBA (I Ch 4").— See Achzib.
CRACKNELS.— Only 1 K 14» 'take with thee ten loaves and cracknels. The Heb. (nni-j) is found elsewhere only Jos 9°, of the ' bread ' the Gibeonites carried with tiiem on their pretended long journey. It is supposed to mean bread that rrumblcs easily, hence the Eng. tr., 'cracknel' being a dialectic variety of crackling. See Rkead.
J. Hastings.
516
CRAFT
CREED
CRAFT.— In the mod. sense of guile, Dn 8", 2 Mac 12'^ Mk 14' ; for already by 1611 the word had lost its orig. sense of 'power,' 'strenj^th,' ■n'hen it could be distinctly set against ' cunning,' as Caxton (1474), C'/tcsse, ''ihou bast vayntiuisslied them ... by subtilnes. . . . Hut I that am a roniayn ghal vaynquisshe them by craft and strength of armes.' Elsewhere in AV 'c' means 'trade,' an early application of the word ( = Uiat to which a man gives his strength). So 'Crafts- man ' = ' tradesman,' as llev 18-- ' no craftsman of whatsoever craft he be.' In Bic/i. II. I. iv. 28, Shaks. plays upon the double sense of ' craft ' —
' Wooing poor craftemen with the craft of nnileB.'
Crafty and Craftiness are always used in the modern degenerated sense. J. HASTINGS.
CRANE. — The word oib jiJf, or O'p ^, tr. in AV crane, should be tr. swallow (so RV). The first of these words occurs in Hezekiah's prayer (Is 38"). Here (isrsg is iijj did?) sus is a swallow, and 'agvr possibly an adjective which means twittering. The passage would then be tr. ' as a twittering swallow I chatter.' In the second passage (Jer 8') occurs the second form ("i"Jj;i o'p?), and here ^is is again a swallow, and 'agiir the txvit- tererC.). If the passage be tr. 'as a swallow and a tmtterer,' the latter probably refers to another species of swallow, or one of the twittering birds 01 passage, of which there are many in the Holy Land. In the passage in Jer. the allusion is to the migratory habits of the bird, and its note ; in Isaiah to its note alone. Some of the swallows, as the swift or martin, are known to the Arabs by the name ^m or sis, and utter a piercing shriek as they fly, but the allusion here is to the twittering of the birds in nesting time. By no stretch of imagination could the whoop or trumpeting of the crane be called twittering. Some have supposed that the yanshiiph (Lv 11", Dt 14'«), tr. in AV and RV great owl, and yansMph (Is 34"), tr. in both owl, are the crane. But, in the absence of evidence in its favour, we must drop the crane from the fauna of the Bible.