LEAH
as Dives is not punished for his wealth, so L. is not rewarded for his poverty. He is rewarded for his patient submission. In life he does not mur- mur at God’s unequal distribution of goods, nor rail at Dives for his neglect of him. In Sheol he does not triumph over Dives, nor protest against the idea of his being at his beck and call. He leaves Abraham (a righteous rich man) to decide everything ; and Abraham points out that as the one had had uninterrupted luxury, and the other uninterrupted misery, in life, so there can be no interruption in the reversed conditions of either in Sheol.
The hypothesis that Dives and his five brethren represent six of the Herods (father, sons, and grandsons being called brethren for simplification) is incredible. Those who hold it consistently maintain that the parable is wrongly attributed to Christ, and is a later composition. Christ cer- tainly would not have made a personal attack of this kind on any one, although He did not hesitate to censure Antipas publicly (Lk 13%).
The belief that Lazarus was a leper has produced such words as lazzaro for leper and lazzaretto or lazar-house for leper- hospital. During the Crusades an order of knights of St. Lazarus was founded (1119, 1255), with the special duty of protecting and tending lepers. It lasted till modern times, but is distinct from the much more modern order of Lazarists or Lazarians. A. PLUMMER.
LEAD (nbs ‘ophereth) is often named among the spoils from Syria under Tahutmes ΠΙ.; and it was common enough by B.C. 1200 to be used in Egypt for the sinkers of fishing-nets. This use was familiar to Israelites, as the Song of Moses has ‘sank like lead in the mighty waters’ (Ex 15”). Lead in the literal sense is mentioned in Nu 31” (P) along with brass, iron, and tin, and along with the same metals is used figuratively of Israel in Ezk 2218 (ef. ν.39); and it appears in Ezk 2715 along with silver, iron, and tin as an article of commerce brought from Tarshish to Tyre. In Job 195) the sufferer exclaims, ‘O that with an iron pen and lead [my words] were graven in the rock for ever !’ There may be a twofold reference here: (a) to the use of a leaden tablet to be written on with an iron pen, (δ) to the cutting-out of an inscription on a rock, but more probably there is but one figure before the mind’s eye of the speaker,—that of pouring molten lead into the letter-forms sunk in the stone. (See Davidson and Dillmann, ad Joc.). See, further, under MINES, MINING.
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE.
LEAH (ax, Acia).—The elder daughter of Laban, and one of Jacob’s wives. The ruse by which she was palmed off by her father upon Jacob, who imagined that he was marrying Rachel, is described in Gn 297", As to her personal appearance, we are told that her eyes were ΠΡ, which the LXX render by ἀσθενεῖς, and EV by ‘tender,’ ὅ.6. weak or dull. The context and the etymology of the word both favour this meaning rather than that of ‘beautiful,’ which is attributed to the word by Onk. and Sa‘adya, who imagine that the sense intended is, that though Leah had fine eyes she was otherwise not so handsome as Rachel. By her marriage with Jacob, Leah became the mother of six sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah, Gn 29%!-* 8018. 20-21, See JAcop, vol. ii. p. 528. Along with her sister she expressed sympathy with Jacob on account of his
treatment by Laban, and agreed to accompany ὦ, 3D
her husband in his flight from her father, 31* When the meeting between Jacob and Esau was about to take place, Leah and her children were pees in an intermediate position between the handmaids with their children in the front and Rachel with her children in the rear, 33'*:7. Leah is mentioned in 49%! as having been buried in tha
LEAN NOTH
cave of Machpelah, Revue eudently died prior to Jacob’s going down to Egypt. In Ru 4" the women who invoke a blessing on the union of Boaz and Ruth, make honourable mention of Leah and Rachel as having ‘ built’ the house of Israel. It is clear that the most ancient division of Israel distinguished Leah tribes and Rachel tribes. Wellhausen (Proleg. 150; cf. W. R. Smith, Kinship, 195, 257; Stade, ZATW i. 112 if.) regards Levi as a patronymic derived from Leah. See LEVI. he meaning of the name Leah is somewhat un- certain. Gray (Heb. Prop. Names, 96) accepts the meaning ‘wild cow’ (so WW. R. Smith, Kinship, p. 119[‘ bovine antelope’); Frd. Delitzsch, Proleg. 80, and [doubtfully] Néldeke, ZDMG, 1886, p. 167). Others, as Haupt (GN, 1883, p. 100), compare the Assyrian /i’at in the sense of ‘ mistress.’ Upon the ground that the narrative in Gn 29" describes the one sister as ugly and the other as beautiful, Ball (in SBOT, ad loc.) suggests a connexion between
axd (and perhaps nb) and the Arab. root ss) ‘to
be ugly,’ u. ‘to look ugly or malignantly.’ See Lane, p. 2677. J. A. SELBIE.
LEANNOTH, Ps 88 (title).—See Mahalath under art. PSALMS.
LEASING is the Anglo-Saxon /edsung, ‘a lie,’ and comes from leds, ‘false,’ which Skeat believes to be the same word as leds, loose, so that ‘ leasing’ is literally ‘looseness of statement.’ In the Acts of James I. of Scotland, 1424, ‘ It is ordanyt—that all lesingis makaris and tellaris of thaim, the quhilk may ingener discorde betuix the king and his pepill,—salbe challangit be thaim that power has, and tyne lyff and gudis to the king ’—Jamie- son’s Scottish Dictionary, s.v. ‘Lesing-makare.’ And still older, in the Preface to king Alfred’s Laws, the 44th article is, Onscfina ὑπ 4 ledsunga =‘Shun thou ever leasings.’ Wyclif uses the word often. Thus, Jn 8“ ‘Whanne he [the deuel] spekith a lesinge, he spekith of his owne thingis ; for he is a lyiere, and fadir of it.’ He also has the forms ‘leasing-maker,’ Pr 21°, and ‘leasing- monger,’ as Sir 20” ‘Betere is a theef than the customablenesse of aman, aleesyngmongere’ (1382, ‘than the besynesse of a man liere’). With Wyclif’s translation of Jn 8“ ci. Knox, Historie, Ρ. 288, ‘ But who can correct the leasings of such as in all things show them the sons of the Father of all lies’; Elyot, The Governour, ii. 217, ‘And the devill is called a lyer, and the father of leasinges. Wherfore all thinge, which in visage or apparaunce pretendeth to be any other than verily it is, may be named a leasinge ; the execution whereof is fraude, whiche is in etfecte but untrouthe, enemie to trouthe, and consequently enemye to