H. Porter.
CUPBOARD (Kv\lKtor, 1 Mac 15").— A sideboard used for the display of gold and silver plate. This is the earliest meaning of cuiiboard, a board or table for disi)laying cups and otlier ve.ssela ; cf. Greene (1592), ' Her mistress
the cubboorde for shewe.'
set all her plate on J. Hastings.
CURIOUS. — Of the many meanings which once belonged to this word only two now remain, in- quisilii'C anil peculiar. Of these the lirst is found in Apocr., 2 Es 4'^ (interrngarc) 9" (cnrinsus esse). Sir 3'^ (m*) repiepydj:ov, RV ' Be not over busy '), 2 Mac 2*' (iroXinrpaytioveii'). In OT curious occurs as a description of ' the girdle of the epliod ' in Ex 28H.»7.» 29» 39»-»'", Lv 8', for whi.h RV sub- stitutes 'cunningly woven,' Amer. KV 'skilfully woven.' 'Curious girdle' (AV) or 'cunningly woven band' (KV) represents one word in Heb., 35'n Mshebh, which comes from 3pij hdshnbh, to think, deNTse, invent ingenious or artistic things ; whence also Dt'n hOshfhh, tr" ' cunning workman ' ; and i??'qo mahitsh/ihhnh, device, invention, tr* ' curious works,' Ex 35" (RV ' cunning works ').
534
CUESE
CURSE
•Crafty,' 'cunning,' and 'curious' were all used formerly in the sense of clever, ingeniouB ; of. Barbour (1375), Bruce, x. 359—
' A crafty man and a ourionn ' ;
and as a good parallel to the passages in Ex, Shaka. Cymb. v. v. 361—
' He, air, was lapp'd In a moat curious mantle, wrought by tbe hand Of blB queen mother.'
The same thought is found in Ps 139" 'I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.' The Heb. here (T-Oi?";) means ' variegated ' ; ' the body or the f cetus is described as woven together of so many different- colonred threads, like a cunning ana beautiful network or tapestry ' — Perowne.
The only other occurrence of 'curious' is in Ac 19" 'c. arts,' meaning 'magical arts,' as RVm (Gr. t4 repUpya, lit. ' superfluous things,' ' things better left alone ' (Page) ; cf. Sir 3^ above, and see Busybody). • Curious ' here is due to Wyclif, ' curiouse thingis,' a literal tr. of Vulg. curiosa ; Tindale, 'c. crafts'; Geneva, 'c. artes'( vulg. marg. curiosas artes). From this place it has passed into English literature, as Bacon, Essays, 35, ' the Q. Mother, who was given to Curious Arts, caused the King her Husbands Nativitie, to be Calcu- lated, under a false Name.' J. Hastings.
CURSE. — Under this title an account is given of the ideas connected primarily ■n-ith the Heb. words D-igiJ and u-m (herem), and vdth the Gr. word i.viB(IM (anathema), so far as it is representative of the latter. The Heb. words are variously rendered in AV : ' the accursed thing ' in Jos V- " '*"• ; ' every- thing devoted' in Nu 18" ; 'every dedicated' thing in Ezk 44^ ; ' and I will consecrate their apoU ' in Mic 4". R V has in all these places ' devote ' or ' devote^ thing ' ; where the object is personal, it has usufflly ' utterly destroy ' (see Driver on Dt 2'* "•' or Sam. p. 100 f. ). A thing which is a-r. is irre- vocably withdrawn from common use. This may be done in two ways, or at least may have two kmds of result. In the one case, the dievoted thing be- comes God's ; it falls irredeemably to Him, or to His sanctuarr or His priests. In this sense, as has been pointed out, to ' devote ' a thing is to make a peculiar kind of vow concerning it. The most instructive passage, in illustration of this sense, is Lv 27'*'- ' No devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, whether of man or beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed : every devoted thing is most holy nnto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted from among men, shall be ransomed ; he shall surely be put to death.' In the second and third of the passages quoted above (Nu 18", Ezk 44*'), it is said expressly that every devoted thing in Israel is the priest s : this might include the spoil of conquerecf nations, carried into tlie temple treasury, as perhaps in Mic 4", or property of any other description which a man irrevocably alienated. But the last words in Lv 27" (he shall surely be put to death) point to the second, and much tlie commoner, use of the words Dinn and D-iri. To ' devote ' a thing means to put it tinder the ban, to make and to execute a vow of extermination, so far as that thing is concerned. It is this meaning that has occasioned the Eng. rendering for c-;n — the accursed thing. Whatever is devoted to utter destruction is regarded as under a curse. Things which are so devoted are in a sense inviolable ; in the old, morally neutral sense of holiness, it may be said that a poculinr degree of holiness attaches to them. The thing called n-iri is at the same time fn.T7 D'pii) dnp (compare the seemingly opp. mean- ings of laeer in Latin, and the idea of taboo). It