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2. In our EV ‘knops’ is also the translation of an entirely different word oyps, pék@im, of which the precise signification is still uncertain It is used to describe the ornamentation on the cedar lining of the temple walls: ‘And there was cedar in the house within, carved with knops (marg. ‘ gourds’) and open tlowers’ (1 K 68 RV). This must refer to some egg-shaped (ef. Targuin, in loc.) ornament, carved in low relief, perhaps, as the margin proposes, the fruit of the cttrudlus colocynthus, which appears to bear in Hebrew the cognate name paksewah—the ‘wild gourd’ of 2 Kk 4°.* Two rows of the same ornamentation were introduced ‘under the brim’ of the great ‘ molten sea’ which stood in the temple court (1 K 75). In this case, however, the knops were not the product of the artist's chisel, but were cast with the sea (ib.). See SEA (BRAZEN). <A. R.S. KENNEDY.
KNOWLEDGE.—The word ‘knowledge’ is here considered, not generally, but only in the ethico- religious sense, or so far as there is an approxima- tion in Scripture to a technical (theological) use of it. At the very beginning of the OT the probation of man is connected with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gn 51. The view of ‘ knowledge’ underlying this mythical narrative seems to be that which is brought out in Wellhausen’s interpreta- tion (Prolegomena*, p. 316f.). ‘To know good and evil does not mean in Hebrew to have the moral con- sciousness developed ; it means to be intelligent, ‘to know what's what.’ The desire to know is the desire to be like God—to possess His secrets, to wield His power, and so to be independent of Him. But the gratification of this desire, so the moral would originally run, always defeats itself. The impulse to know, the impulse which creates science and civilization, is indulged at a great cost. We build Babylon, and become conscious that we have lost Eden. That this appreciation of ‘ knowledge.’ which pervades the sceptical passages in Ecclesi- astes, underlies the third chapter of Genesis, is not to be denied ; but neither can we deny that the myth is so treated by the writer as to make it yacld an explanation of the transition in human nistory from innocence to guilt. The eating of the forbidden fruit was an act in which man lost the knowledge of God and acquired the knowledge of sin.
i. The OT everywhere assumes that there is such a thing as the knowledge of God, but it is never speculative, and it is never achieved by man. God is known because He makes Himself known, and He makes Himself known in His character. Hence the knowledge of God is in the OT=true religion ; and as it is of God’s grace that He appears from the beginning speaking, com- manding, active, so as to be known for what He is, so the reception of this knowledge of God is ethically conditioned. The secret (0, lit. friendly conversation) of the LorD is with them that fear Him (Ps 9512); the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LorpD are one (Is 113). On the other hand, an irreligious man is described as one who does not know God; and that though he is the priest ministering at the altar (1S 2”). The moral corruption of the last days of Israel ie described by Hosea when he writes, ‘There is no truth, nor loving-kindness, nor knowledge of God in the land’ (Hos 4’). The ethical content and value of this knowledge are seen also in ch. 6° ‘1 desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.* It is in this sense of an experimental acquaintance with God's character, and a life determined by it, that a
*It has been pointed out (Low, Aram. Pyjlanzennamen, p. 278) that NYP in the Mishna denotes a ball of yarn (see this word and 73p3 in Levy, Newheb. Worterd. 8.vv.).
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aniversal knowledge of God is made the chief blessing of the Messianic age. ‘lhe earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lorp’ (Is 11°); ‘They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest’ (Jer 31%). And this again is not because men have achieved it by speculative efforts of their own: ‘All thy children shall be taught of the Lorp’ (Is 54'*). Side by side with this practical knowledge of God the OT makes room for any degree of speculative agnosticism. God is great beyond all our thoughts: His ways are unsearch- abie (Job δ᾽). He is a God who hides Himself (Is 454), and gives no account of His matters. But such agnosticism is not a rival of religion, of the knowledge of God: it is a part of it. The knowledge of God includes a recognition of His immensity, and part of man’s worship must always be silence (Ps 65'). This is especially brought out in the Book of Job. The conception of true religion as the knowledge of God is probably the true antecedent and parent of some Nt expressions for which affinities have been sought in the phenomena of Gnosticism. John (6%) quotes Is 543 (see above); and the key to the emphasis which he lays on ‘knowing’ God, or the truth, or Jesus Christ, is more likely to be found in such passages as are referred to above, than in modes of thought alien to Christianity.