LiTKRATU&R. — For a fuller discussion of the aubject the reader la referred to the admirable truatincnt of It by Driver, in his commentary on 'Deuteronomy' (Jntcniationai Critical Coin. mentdTy, T. k 1. Clarl<, EdinlmrKti). in his LOT, and in hia art. ' Deuteronomy ' in Smith's Visi; U) all of which the writer of the prcsLMit article is largely indebted. Other worl<9 deahng with the same subject, t<> which reference may bo made, are the commentaries of Octtli and Harper, and Einleitungen ot Kiehm, Comlll, KoniL'. Strack, Kuenen, Ilolzinger ; Cheyne, Jeremiah (•Men of the liible ' scries) ; W. U. Smith, OTJCi; Kyle, Caiwn of the OT; Montoflorc, lidifjion 0/ the Ancient UeUrewa ; Wildcboer, LU. d.A.T.; Picpenbring, ' La Kctomio et le Codede josiaa,' in Revue d. tUittoiie det Itetigiom, t xxix. 1894.
H. E. Kyle.
DEVIL. — See DEMON, Satan. DEYOTED THINGS.— See Accursed, Cuksk.
DEVOTION. — RV gives ' devotion ' for AV 'prayer' in .lob 15* (nij-i;). In AV the word is found only Ac 17"* ' as I passed by, and beheld your devotions,' Or. ri acjidaiuxTix v/iuir, KV ' the objects of your worship.'
Tliat RV gives the meaning of the Greek there la no doubt Ttie same Or. won! occurs Wis 142" (Vulg. deue, AV ' a (tod,' KV ' object of devotion '), IS" (Vulg. quof colil, A V ' the things which ho worshippeth,' RV 'object of his worship'); Bel" (EV 'the gods ye worship'); and '2 Th '2^ (I'V 'that il worahippccl/ KVm "an object of worship'). Did the AV trans- lators understand 'devotions' in the sense of ' objects of wor- ship,' then? Aldis Wright (.Bible WordJiook,* p. 198 t.), after •
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DEW
DIAL
full ducuBslon, concludes that they did not. He qnotes, how- ever, from Sidney, Arcadia (ed. 1698, p. 282 [ed. 1622, p. 277J), AS /oUow* : * Dametos began to speaice his lowd voyce, to looke big, to march up and downe, and in his march to lift his leggea higher than he waa wont, swearing by no meane devotions, that the walls should not keepe the coward from him.' The Ox/. £tuj. Diet, gives *an object of religious worship' as one of tlie meanings of ' devotion,' quoting the above from Sidney, Ac IT^*, and a passage from Fletcher (1625), Double Marriage, it. iv.: * Churches and altars, priests and all devotions, Tumbled to- gether into one rude chaos'; but saya, 'this sense is not very certain, the meaning of the quotations being in every case doubtful.' As Wright points out, AV took the word from Oen. Bible of 1660 ; Wyclif (1380) having ' mawmetis ' ; Tind. ' the maner how ye worship your goddes,' so Cran., Gen. of 1657 (WTiitting- ham). Bishops' ; Gov. ' youre gods seruyce ' (from Zurich Bible, euwre Gotttidienit) ; Rhem. 'your Idols.' But it has not been observed that Tomson's NT of 1576, wliich from 1587 onwards supplanted the NT of 1560 in most copies of the Gen. Bible, has the marg. note : * \Vhatsoever men worship for religion's sake, that we oill devotion.' That note, which removes all doubt of this meaning from the word, was before the translators of AV, and they would have no hesitation in using an abstract word in this concrete sense : cf. Ac lO^ Gr. ri fjui.ra.toL, AV ' vanities,' RV 'vain things.' OoverdAle has 'devotion ' in Ja 1™ for AV »nd BV ' religion.' J. HASTINGS.
DEW (^, tal). — i. The atmosphere is capable of holding in suspension a certain amount of aqueous vapour proportionate to its temperature under a
fiven pressure. The greatest amount is taken up uring the daytime ; but on the approach of sunset, when the temperature is lowered, part of the vapour is precipitated in the form of dew, till the dew-point is reached.
This process is enhanced in Eastern countries like Palestine, where the surface of the ground and the air in contact therewith are highly heated during the daytime, but where at night, and par- ticularly under a cloudless sky, the heat of the ground is radiated into space and the air becomes rapidly cooled down. The excess of moisture in the air then gently ' falls as dew on the tender herb,' and sometimes so copiously as to sustain tlie life of many plants which would otherwise peri.sh during the rainless season ; or even, as in the case of Gideon, to saturate a fleece of wool (Jg 6^). When the sky is clouded, radiation is retarded, and rain may fall. Thus rain and dew alternately benefit the vegetation ; and to the latter agent may possibly be ascribed the presence of a beauteous, though dwarfed, flora amongst the waterless valleys of the Sinaitic Peninsula, which in the early mom sparkles in the sunshine, owing to the multitudes of dewdrops which have settled on the leaves and stems of the plants during the cool hours of the night.
ii. Thus deprivation of dew, as well as of rain, becomes a terrible calamity in the East. On this account ' dew and rain ' are associated in the imprecation called down by David on the mountains of Gilboa in his distress at the tidings of the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 S 1-') ; and in the curse pronounced on Ahab and his kingdom by Elijah (1 K 17') ; a^ also by the prophet Haggai on the Jews after the Restoration (Hag I'") owing to their unwillingness to rebuild the temple.