The adj.‘ monstrous’ is applied in Wis 17" to the pear sons which terrified the Egyptians during the plague of darkness,—‘ were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions (τέρασιν φαντασμάτων, Vulg. monstrorum tvmore), and partly fainted.’
A monster (Lat. monstrum, a divine omen, from monere, to warn) is anything which attracts the attention from being out of the ordinary course of nature. The ‘sea monsters’ above are so on account οἷ their size, while the adj. ‘monstrous’ is used of tne apparitions, because of their warning or ominous character. phrase, i. fol. lxvi, ‘It semeth a monstreous thing
unto them which chaunced to the Prophete Jonas: | ari shall have a lyke monstre, but more wondre- |
The tr. of Ps 716 in Pr. Bk. is, ‘I am become as it were a monster unto many,’ on which Davies (Bible English, 183) remarks, ‘We might suppose that the Psalmist meant that he was an object of horror and detestation, but he is affirming that his preservation through so great trials and dangers appeared miraculous to many.’ Driver (Parallel Psalter) translates, ‘I am become as it were a portent unto many,’ and w a footnote explains, ‘ Attracting attention on account of my extraordin sufferings,’ comparing Dt 28 (‘for a sign and for a portent’ So most commentators. Shakespeare often uses the adj. of that which attracts attention because of its magnitude, as J Henry νοι πὰ, iv. 630, ‘the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at tne door’; 11 Henry VJ. tv. vii. 88, ‘O monstrous coward.’
J. HASTINGS.
MONTH.—See TIME.
MONUMENT.—This word occurs in Is 654 ‘A rebellious people ... which remain among the raves, and lodge in the monuments’ (Ὁ δ᾽ o-ms)2), V ‘and lodge in the secret places,’ RVm ‘ vaults’). * See this treatise for other details, especial Bm a E.g. the priests, but not the ΤΩΣ were aie thay tad payment of commission. Again, ‘if one gives [to the changer] a tetradrachm (wp) and [after paying the half-shekel due) receives back a didrachm (ὅς), he has to pay double agio’
Cf. Udall, Erasmus’ Para- |
ΟΣ vey 3:5 day dein γὴν jolua, @. 1. 7. VOL, 111.—28
MOON
The EV word ‘monuments’ means ‘tombs. The Rhemish NT often uses the word in this sense, after the Vulg. monumentum. Thus Mt 23% ‘You build the Prophets sepulchres, and garnish the moniments of iust men’; Lk 8” ‘ There mette him a certaine man that had a devil now a very long time, and he did weare no clothes, neither did he tarie in house, but in the monuments.’ So John’s disciples (Mk 6”) ‘tooke his body, and they put it in a monument’; and our Lord’s sepulchre is caJled a ‘monument’ in Mt 27”, Lk 23°, Jn 19%, Ac 13, Cf. Shaks. Tit. Andronicus, τι. iii. 228—
‘Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
apo ring, that lightens all the hole,
ich like a taper in some monument, Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthy cheeks, And shows the ragged entrails of the pit.’
The translation of Is 654 is uncertain, owing to the un- certainty of the reference. The Heb. word means literally ‘guarded places.’ The LXX renders the two clauses in one, ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν καὶ by τοῖς σπηλαίοις κοιμῶνται διὰ ἰνύπνια ; the Syriac follows this interpretation, which is explained by Jerome as a method of obtaining oracles in dreams by what is known as incubation (κοιμῶνται), t.e. spending the night in subterranean sacred places. W. R. Smith (RS?, 198f.) points out that ‘the whole N. Semitic area was dotted over with sacred tombs, Memnonia, Semiramis mounds, and the like, and at every such spot a god or demigod had his subterranean abode.’ See also A. van Hoonacker’s art. on ‘ Divination by the "Ob amongst the Ancient Hebrews’ in Expos. Times, vol. ix. 1898, p. 157 ff., and the artt. Divination, WITCHCRAFT. J. HASTINGS.
MOOLI (A MooN, B -ef, AV Moli), 1 Es 87 (LXX 4)-- ΜΑΗΙΠῚ, Ezr 818, son of Merari and grandson of Levi (see Ex 61°), The LXX in all places renders ‘np in this way.
MOON.—The most common name used for the second of the great lights of heaven in the OT is oy,* written in Phenician with the same con- sonants; in Assyr. iri}u ; Eth. ware/i. The mean- ing of the word is regarded as uncertain, but there can be but little doubt that the root to which it belongs was originally of the class 1’5, as is clearly indicated by the Ethiopic, and also by the Assyrian name for ‘month,’ which, being transcribed in the month-name Marcheswan with Ὁ replacing the original w (m and w are interchangeable consonants in Assyrian), implies a connexion with the Assyrian word dru ‘road,’ and confirms the correctness of the suggestion of Ges.-Buhl that 97; means ‘ wan- derer,’ and is connected with the cognate mx ‘to wander,’ ‘journey.’ The less common word 733 designates the moon as ‘the white one,’ from the root j2> ‘to be white.’ There is also another word, namely #3h, which is used to designate the new moon (see NEw MooN, and art. FEASTS in vol. i. p. 859°).
Where first mentioned in the Bible(Gn 1”), neither of the above words is used, the luminary being de-
| scribed as ‘the lesser light’ (parallel with the descrip-
tion there given of the sun as the ‘ greater light’). It is described as being placed in the heavens to rule the night, and also ‘ for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years’; and it was apparently as a time-measurer that it was principally looked on by the Hebrews, and also, to a somewhat less degree, by the Babylonians and Assyrians, to whom the chief character of the moon was a per- sonal one, namely, that of the representative of the moon-god Sin (ef. Sennacherid =* Sin has multiplied the brothers’) and the moon-goddess (the moon as the consort of the sun) Aa. <A further reference to the moon as the indicator of the (religious) festivals is to be found in Ps 104" ‘he appointeth the moon for seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down.’ ; Ἰ