• He brought the array of Cyrus to Babylon on the 16th Tammuz, Cynis arriving^ nearly four months later, on the 3rd Marcheshvan.
t It is noteworthy that Xcnophon (Cyrxtp. N. 6) aaya that Oohryaa waa ' a man in yean*.'
I .los. {A nt. X. xi. 4, days that Darius (the Mrde). whom he represcnta aa the kinsman of Oynis, ' ha'i another name amon^ the Ort-eka.' Apparently, the name of Uobryaa waa present to bis mind when be wrote this.
authority, therefore, D. the Mede was in fact never ruler of Babylonia.* I. A. PINCHES.
DARKNESS (Heb. ■riyn and '75X [and their cog- nates], nc';;, ^:.-si^, Gr. crKirrot, (Tkot/o, ^"0005). Besiies its literal meaning, darkness is frequently used in Scrip, metaphorically. Since God is light, because the perfect embodiment of rational and moral truth, and since the knowledge of Him is man's light, darkness is the natural antithesis of these ideas. Hence in OT it is emblematic of uothinguess (Job 3*- '• ') ; more freq. it is equivalent to death (Job 1021. a 15a 1712-u, 1S29, Ec IPetc), and to the un- known or undiscovered (Job 12'^ 28', Is 45' etc. ). So, too, it is the emblem of mysterious affliction, and of the ignorance and frailty of human life (2 S 22=», Job 19» 23", Ps 18-^ 107'"- '*, Is 9» 29" 42'. '8 etc.) ; of moral depravity (Is 5™ 60^ Pr 2'^), and of confu.sion and destruction visited on the wicked (Job 5'^ 15»" 20»', Ps 82», Pr 4'" 20", Is 8-= 59^ Ec 2'<, Jer 2^' etc.). It is also the symbol of that which causes terror and distress (Gn 15'", Is 5*" 47', La 3^, Ezk 32"* etc.). Since, moreover, God is incomprehensible, H'ls ways mysterious, and His judgments severe, darkne.ss is sometimes associated with His operations in providence (Ps 18". "), in punishing (Am 5'*, Zeph 1'*), and in His self-manifestations generally (Ps 97^, 1 K S'", 2 Ch 6'), even as the guiding 'pillar' was light to Israel but darkness to the Egyptians (Ex li'"), and Sinai was covered with dark clouds when J" descended on it (Ex 2U", Dt 4" 5", Heb 12'»). In NT darkness is prevailingly the emblem of sin as a state of spiritual ignorance and moral depravity (Mt 4'« 6'^, Lk V 11«22", Jn 1' 3'" 8'» 12'". ", Ac 2G'8, Ro 2'» 13", 1 Co i\ 2 Co 6", Eph 5^ " 6'», Col l'^ 1 Th o''- », 1 P 2», 1 Jn 1'- « 2«- »• f"), but also of the desolation of divine punishment (Mt 8" 22" 25*', 2 P 2". ", Jude «• ").
Two instances of special darkness, recorded in the Bible, call for notice. (1) The ninth of the plagues sent by God upon the Egyptians was a plague of darkness (Ex lU-'- ^). Many commentators explain this as due to a storm of tine dust and sand driven from the desert by the S. wind, the Ifamsin, noted for such effects in the spring. The LXX seems to have taken such a view, describing it as ' darkness, thick cloud (yv6(po^), storm (BOiWa.).' Some have regarded it as wholly miraculous ; but the other plagues seem due to God's use of natural agencies. (2) riie darkness at the crucifixion from the sixth to the ninth hour (Mt 27", Mk lu*-, Lk 23"- "). This the evangelists seem plainly to represent as supernatural. The true text of Lk 23" (roO i)\lo\i ^kXiItoi-toj or ^xXurdn-os, 'the sun failing' or 'hav- ing failed'; RV 'the sun's light fading') has indeed been thought to describe it as an eclipse. This reading and interpretation were noted by Origen, from whose remarks it appears that objectors to Christianity had so explained it. Origen rejected the reading, attributing it either to a scribe's wish to provide an explanation or to an enemy's wish to pervert the evangelical account (see WII, Notes on selected readings). Origen also rejected the view itself that an eclipse, natural or miraculous (for so some explained it), was intended by Luke, though his language elsewhere seems to imply the true text. Ihe charge that it was a natural eclipse is put into the mouth of the Jews in the Acts of 1 ilaie, contained in the pseudo-
• Driver, who in LOTi pp. 469, 479 n. maintAined a cautious reserve, adniittinj; the {>08sibility that D. the Mede nii^ht prove to be a hist^triral character, acrees in his later editions with Sayce, that the existence of such a ruler is completely excluded by the monuments (cf. Sayce, UCM 5^fT.). The latter, as well as 1'. llaupt (note on Dn Ci in Haupt's OT^, and a host <>f modem scholars, argue that ' 1>. the Medo ' is due to confusitin with I). IlystjLspis, who conijuered Ilahylnn (B.C. 620). On the theory of the .\hiCcabnao date of Daniel, such a coofuidoa !■ held I to be quit4. explicable.
560
DARKON
DAVID
Gospel of Xicodemiis. Eusebius {Chronicon) and later Fathers appealed also to the stateini'iit of Phlegon of Tralles (of the 2nd cent.) that in the 202ud Olympiad (July A.l). 29 to 33) there was the greatest eclipse of the sun over known, that it became night at the sixth hour of the day, so that stars appeared, and that there was a great earth- quake in Bitliynia. These writers differ as to the year of the Olympiad, but Wurm and Ideler place it on Nov. 2-1, \.\>. 29 (Wieseler, Hyuopsis of Four (rospels. p. 3ol ; see, on the other hand, Whiston, Teslimi)ivj of Phlegon Vindicateil, Lond. 1732). The insuperable objections to its identification with the darkness at the crucili.Kion are, even apart from the above date, that at passover the moon was full, and the darkness lasted three hours. Seyffarth's view (ChroH. Sacr. pp. 58, 59), that the Jewish calendar was so deflected that the passover actually fell at a new moon, ha.s founil no advocates, and is wholly improbable, since the Jewish calendar depended on observations of the moon. There is, however, no need to interpret Luke of an eclipse in the astronomical sense (WH, Notes on selected readings). It is simply a statement that the sun's light failed. See also LUiHT, PLAGUE*.