MEARAH
Communion,’ ‘My duty is to exhort you in the
mean season’; Jer 3255 Coy. ‘In the meane season
he cite is delyvered in to the power of the Cal- ees.’
There is another adj. ‘mean,’ which is traced to the Anglo-Sax. gemaene, ‘common,’ ‘general,’ and is possibly connected with Lat. communis, though Skeat counts that very doubtful. This word was early confused with the distinct Anglo- Sax. word maene, ‘false,’ ‘wicked,’ with the result, that from signifying merely peasant-born, of common origin, it came to express ‘low-minded,’ ‘base’ (the word ‘base’ has a parallel ca see BASE), and again ‘ niggardly,’ ‘penurious.’ In AV the word is used only in the sense of ‘low- born,’ ‘common’: Pr 22” ‘Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men’ (355 own, lit. ‘before obscure persons’ as AVm and RVm); Is 2°‘ And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man humbleth himself,’ Heb. πὶ opp. to wx, so 5 318; Ac 21 ‘a citizen of no mean city’ (οὐκ ἀσήμου πόλεως). Cf. Pref. to AV 1611, ‘If any man conceit, that this is the lot and portion of ne meaner sort onely, and that Princes are priviledged by their high estate, he is deceived’; Elyot, Governour, i. 25, ‘It is expedient and also nedefull that under the capitall governour be sondry meane authorities’; Knox, Hist. 392, ‘When scarcely could be found ten in a Country that rightly knew God, it had been foolishnesse to have craved, either of the Nobilitie or of the mean Subjects, the suppressing of Idolatry.’
The adv. meanly is found in 2 Mac 15% ‘If I have done well and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired ; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.’ The meaning is ‘moderately’ (μετρίως). Cf, Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale, 297—
‘The Husbandman was meanly well content Triall to make of his endevourment’ ;
and Shaks. Com. of Errors, τ. i. 59— ‘Thy wife, not meanly proud of two such boys, Made daily motions for our home return.” J. HASTINGS. MEARAH (77> ‘cave’ [cf. AVm]; LXX seems to follow another reading).—Mentioned amongst the districts of Palestine that had yet to be possessed, Jos 134. The text is doubtful (see Dillm. ad loc., and Bennett in SBOT, the latter of whom emends ax ‘from Arvad’); but if we accept the MT, then Mearah, ‘which belongeth to the Zidonians,’ may be Mogheiriyeh (‘small cave’), a village near Zidon ; cf. Aquila, καὶ σπήλαιον ὅ ἐστι τῶν Σιδωνίων. C. R. CoNDER. MEASURES.—See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
MEAT (Anglo-Sax. mete, perhaps from mete to measure, but more probably connected with Lat. mandere to chew) is in AV food in general, not, as now, flesh food only. Thus 2 Es 12° ‘But I remained still in the field seven days, as the angel commanded me ; and did eat only in those days of the flowers of the field, and had my meat (esc) of the herbs.’ The ‘meat-offering’ contained no flesh, but was composed of meal and oil. Fuller, Holy State, 185, says, ‘A rich man told a poore man that he walked to get a stomach for his meat: And J, said the poore man, walk to get meat for my stomach’; cf. Adams on 2 P 14 ‘He feeds the ravens, and the young lions seek their meat at him.’ In their Preface the AV trans- lators say of the Scripture, ‘It is not a pot of manna, or a cruse of oyl, which were for memory onely, or for a meals meat or two, but as it were a shower of heavenly bread, sufficient for a whole host, be it never so great.’ So Hall, Works, i. 806, “There was never any meat, except the forbidden
MEDEBA
308
fruit, so deare bought as this broth of Jacob. As the word signifies whatever is eaten, it may be applied to flesh, as in Fuller, Holy Warre, 212, ‘Where he giveth away the meat he selleth the sauce’; so in Gn 2747-8! of the venison Esau pre- pared for Isaac, and 27% 4 of the goat’s flesh which Rebekah prepared.
The plu. ‘meats’ for ‘kinds or portions of food’ occurs some ten times in the Apocr., also in Pr 23° ‘neither desire thou his dainty meats,’ where the Heb. is simply ‘ his dainties,’as RV; Ac 1553 ‘meats offered to idols,’ where the Gr. is ‘ offerings to idols’ (εἰδωλόθυτα, RV ‘things sacrificed to idols’); and in Mk 7%, 1Co 63%, 1 Ti 43, He 9 13°, where the Gr. is always βρώματα, things to eat. Cf. Rhem. N.T. Preface, ‘When we are litle ones, let us not covet the meates of the elder sort,’ and the Rhem. tr. of Lk 92 <Dimisse the multitudes, that going into townes and villages here about, the may have lodging, and finde meates,’ Jn 48 ‘ For Tis Disciples were gone into the citie to bie meates.’
J. HASTINGS.
MEAT-OFFERING.—See MEAL-OFFERING, MEAT, OFFERING, and SACRIFICE.
MEBUNNAI (3:9, ἐκ τῶν υἱῶν (i.e. 329), man MSS Σαβουχαί, Luc. ZaBevi).—According to 2 S 23” a Hushathite (wh. see), one of David’s thirty heroes. The name here given, however, is clearly a mistake for Sibbecai, the form which has been pre- served in the parallel lists, 1 Ch 11° 27" (Σοβοχαί), and also 2S 2118 (B ’OcBoxd, A at Tord el Ch 204,