Fie. 2.
commonly used in the time of Christ, and is most probably the kind referred to in the parable of the Ten Virgins (Mt 95). They hold little oil, and would soon need replenishing. The peasants of Syria and Pal. use these lamps still, although petro- leum has in most places taken the place of olive oil for lighting. An open glass or terra-cotta cup with
Fia. 3.
a piece of rag for a wick is often seen in the poorer peasants’ houses, and this they frequently keep * See an sree J paper by Pére Lagrange in Rev. Biblique
. 18]
(Oct. 1898) on two P: mps to which his attention was called by Clermont-Ganneau. These are figured in the Revue.
LANDMARK
burning all night. The people of the country do not like to sleep without some light in the house, and a dim one furnished by such a lamp suits their purpose. In illuminations at weddings and on feast-days this open style of lamp is much em- ployed. The wick used is a small one drawn
through a pete of cork and left to float on the surface of the oil.
Lamps appear to have been kept burning before the teraphim (images of ancestors); hence the words ‘ the lamp of the wicked is put out’ (Job 18° 217) may have originally meant that the wicked shall have no male descendants to fulfil this duty of placing a lamp before his image (so Schwally, Taber nach dem Tode, 40). H. PortTrER.
LAMPSACUS(1 Mac 15% RVm).—See SAMPSAMES. LANCE.—See SPEAR.
LANCETS (nt5 1 Καὶ 18%).— A mistaken correc- tion in modern edd. of the original reading of the AY of 1611, ‘lancers,’ ὁ... ‘lances,’ properly spears used for hurling. Both forms of the word are old, ‘launcetis’ being the later Wyclifite form in this passage. AV of 1611 adopted the ‘launsers’ of the Bishops’ Bible (spelling it ‘lancers,’ how- ever), and the change into ‘lancets’ was not made before 1762. Cf. Scrivener’s Introduction to the AV, pp. xlvi, xlvii. See SPEAR. ;
W. E. BARNES.
LAND CROCODILE (Ly 1159 RV).—See CHAME-
LEON.
= LAND LAWS.—See Law (in OT)and SABBATICAL EAR.
LANDMARK (5;3:).—An object, such as a stone, a heap of stones, or a tree with a mark in its bark, intended to fix the limit of a field, a farm, or the property of an individual. In Palestine these landmarks are scrupulously re- spected ; and in passing along a road or pathway one may observe from time to time a stone placed by the edge of the field from which a shallow furrow has been ploughed, marking the limits of cultivation of neighbouring proprietors.
_In order to perpeunate the observance of the rights indicated by landmarks in the Mosaic ritual, a curse is pronounced against the surreptitious removal of a landmark belonging to one’s neigh- bour (Dt 19%, for the meaning of which see Driver, ad loc.). In Egypt the land had to be re-measured and allotted after each inundation of the Nile, and boundary-stones placed at the junction of two properties. A collection of such objects is to be seen in the Assyrian Room, British Museum.
E. HULL.
LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TEST.
LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.—1. Names.—(a) The greater part of the Old Test. is written in the language called by the Assyrians ‘the tongue of the west country’ (Winckler, Die K. 1. Sargons, p. 72, 1. 423, ete.),* by biblical writers ‘the lip of Canaan’ (Is 1918), or ‘Jewish’ (2 K 187% *8; οὗ. Neh 13%), by the Rabbis ‘the Sacred Tongue’ (Sotah, vii. 2, etc.), or ‘the Text’ as opposed to ‘ the Targum’ (Bab. Megillah, 18a, ete.), or ‘the lan- guage of the Law’ as opposed to ‘the language of the doctors’ (Weiss, Studien zur Mischnahsprache, p. 9). The Palestinian t+ Rabbis further apply to it the term ‘ Hebrew’ (Jerus. Megillah, p. 19, etc.), and the absence of this name in the OT can be due only to accident; it is the term regularly em- ployed by Greek-speaking Jews (first occurring, it would seem, in the Pref. to Sir; used also by Josephus, Ant. I. i. 2), and it can only be through ignorance that Philo substitutes ‘ Chaldee’ for it. The name ‘ Hebrew’ was adopted by early Chris- tian writers (e.g. Ac 21%), and with the spread of Christianity it migrated into Asiatic, African, and European languages ; some of which have also adopted from the Rabbis the name ‘Sacred Tongue.’
(6) The portions of the OT which are not in Hebrew are in the language called Aramaic in the Bible (2 K 186 ete.) and Talmud (Bab. Shabbath, 124, ete.), and not infrequently ‘Targum’ in the latter (Bab. Megillah, l.c.), ‘Syriac’ im the LXX and sometimes in the Talmud (Jerus. Sota, vii. 2). It would seem that the name ‘Chaldee’ does not belong properly to this language, although the Aramans and Chaldees are sometimes juxtaposed in old inscriptions (Sennacherib, ed. G. Smith, p. 36). Itis probable that the use of the name for ‘ Aramaic’ is due to the comparison of Dn 14 with 2; and the identification of the two appears in the notes of Jerome and Ibn Ezra on the latter pas- sage, though the LXX translator of Dn 27 appears expressly to avoid it. In Syriac works, probably through similar reasoning, ‘ Chaldee’ is sometimes said to mean ‘Old Syriac’ (Thes. Syr. s.v. ‘ Kal- daya’); but in very late times the ‘Chaldeans’ are identified with the ‘ Nestorians,’ probably on the ground of their geographical position (Badger, Nestorians, i. 181; οἵ. Rassam, ‘ Biblical Lands,’ in the Proceedings of the Victoria Institute). In Aramaic are written (1) Dn 24-7°8, (2) certain docu- ments quoted in Ezr 47-6" and 713-36. ostensibly in their original language ; it is, however, noticeable that the connecting narrative is also in Aramaic ; (3) Jer 104, regarded by some as an interpolation, while others endeavour to account for the transi- tion on rhetorical grounds. There are besides several places in the OT where the writers appear to lapse into Aramaic, possibly through the fault of their copyists. In Jos 1555 the adjective npn, in the name ‘New Hazor,’ is Aramaic; in 14° an Aramaic word (1057) is substituted for the Hebrew of the word ‘melted’ in the phrase ‘melted our heart’ (cf. Dt 158). Sporadic cases of words which are Aramaic both in derivation and grammatical form occur in Is 30°, Ezk 9450 33%, Ps 116", pos- sibly Job 37:8, Dn 11%, and elsewhere.