ressed His followers (2 Co 10', 1 P 2%). ‘The
ord’s servant’ must possess the same apes (2Ti 2™!. ; cf. what is said of Moses in Nu 12°, that he was meek [}y] above all men upon earth). Row justly calls attention to the fact that Christianity transfers supremacy from the stronger to the milder virtues (Bampton Lect. p. 154). The result in the growth of the spirit of sympathy and love in the world anny justifies the change. The improvement would have been still greater if Christians had better understood and followed the Christian ideal as set forth in passages like Mt 5%, Ro 12 Too often they have preferred the heathen worship of the stronger virtues to the Christian ideal. Hence the slow fulfilment of prophecies like the one in Is 2*.
The NT teaching on this subject, while
ae beyond the OT teaching, is rooted in it (see Ps 9 10"
20% 724 76° 825 1475, Is 11‘ 61’). The Heb. word (3x, x) * denotes, first of all, a distressed, helpless state in the literal sense, and then ac- quires a moral meaning, just as there is a close connexion between literal and spiritual poverty (cf. Mt δ᾽ and Lk 6”). The Christian beatitude (Mt 5°) almost literally translates Ps 37%. It is
* See Rahifs, ἢ und yy in den Psalnen; and cf. Driver, Par Pealt, 4451. (6.0. ‘humble ’), 451 f. (¢.v. (1) ‘ poor’)
334 MEET
no less striking a fact that the possession of the
earth is promised to the meek in both passages. J.S. BANKs.
MEET (Anglo-Sax. gemet ‘suitable,’ from metan to measure, whence Eng. ‘mete,’ thus ‘according to the proper measure or standard’). The Heb. and Gr. words rendered ‘meet’ in AV are numerous, but the meaning is either ‘fit’ or ‘fitting.’ 1. Fit, suitable, 2 K 105 ‘ Look even out the best and meetest of your master’s sons, and set him on his father’s throne’; Wis 13" ‘He hath sawn down a tree meet for the purpose’; Mt 3° ‘ Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance’ (TR καρποὺς ἀξίους τῆς μετανοίας, edd. καρπὸν ἄξιον, RV ‘fruit worthy of repentance’); 1 Co 15° ‘I am the least of the sont that am not meet to be called an apostle’ (ἱκανός) ; Col 113 ‘Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’ (τῷ πατρὶ τῷ ἱκανώσαντι ἡμᾶς). Cf. Erasmus, Commune Crede, fol. 79, ‘It is not in the mete place.’ So Tindale’s tr. of Nu 1% ‘ whatsoever was mete for the warre’ (so 1% 4, but 136 ‘all that were able to warre,’ and 155 ‘what soever was apte for warre’), and of Mt 1057. 8 ‘He that lovith hys father or mother more then me, is not mete for me.’ Also 1 85. 14° Cov., ‘And where Saul sawe a man that was stronge and mete for warre, he toke him to him’; Hall, Works, ii. 30, ‘Piety and diligence must keepe meet changes with each other; neither doth God lesse accept of our returne to Nazareth, then our going up to Jerusalem’; and Shaks. Lear, 1. ii. 200—
‘Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit, AH with me’s meet that I can fashion fit.’
2. Fitting, proper, as 2 Mac 913 ‘It is meet to be subject unto God’ (δίκαιον, RV ‘It is right’); Mt 15% “Τὸ is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs’ (οὐκ ἔστιν καλόν). Cf. Shaks. Rich. 11. v. iii. 118—
‘No word like ‘‘ pardon,” for kings’ mouths so meet.’ J. HASTINGS.
MEGIDDO (1720, }\n25 Megiddon in Zec 12"; Μαγεδδώ or Μαγεδδών, Μαγδώ in 1 Καὶ 9 A [om. in B]) was an old Canaanite capital (Jos 127, B om.) situated in Issachar but assigned to Manasseh (Jos17", 1 Ch 7”). The Can. inhabitants were, however, ‘put to tribute’ and not driven out (Jos 17*8, Jg 1%7-%), The town was in the district from which Baana, one of Solomon’s twelve commissariat officers, drew sup- plies for the royal household (1 Καὶ 413), and Solomon restored the fortifications (1 K 9%), which were of very ancient date (Inscr. of Thothmes ΠΙ.). Accord- ing to 2 Καὶ 9” Ahaziah died at M.; but elsewhere (2 Ch 22°) it is said that he was found in Samaria, taken to Jehu, and slain. Barak fought Sisera ‘in Taanach by the waters of M.,’ and the Canaanites were swept away by the suddenly swollen Kishon (Jg 521), Pharaoh-necho, whilst on the march from Egypt to Carchemish and the Euphrates, defeated and slew Josiah ‘in the valley’ or ‘plain’ of M. (2 K 23%. %, 2 Ch 35%, 1 Es 1”); and the ‘mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley (LXX plain) of Megiddon’ may refer to the same event (Zec 12"), Possibly this was the battle at Mag- dolum mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 159). Μ. is frequently mentioned in close connexion with Taanach (Jos 127 174, Jg 5%, 1 Καὶ 413, 1 Ch 7%), which was certainly at Ta‘annuk—a small village, on a large isolated mound, or Το, near the edge of the plain of Esdraelon, and about 6} m. NW. of Jenin. M. wastaken by Thothmes I. after a great battle, in which he defeated the confeder- ated kings and princes of Palestine. Leaving his camp at a (a place identified by Maspero with Umm ei-Fahm, but which is more probably Ararah), he marched through a defile (W pares) in which ne expected to be attacked, and in seven hours