2. pay occurs four times, Dt 241% 11. 12,15 (LXX ἐνέχυρον). In vv." it is prescribed that when an Israelite lends to his neighbour on the security of a pledge, he is not to go into the house for the purpose of fetching his pledge, but the borrower is to have the right of selecting the article. Vv.'*” contain the same provision as Ex 22": (see above). The py eee of the root 82} (Qal ‘ borrow or pledge,’ L δανείζομαι ; Hiph. ‘lend on pledge,’ davel{w) is doubtful.
The word ‘pledge’ is also introduced by RV in Hab 28 as tr. of mzy in the phrase wniy oy T2203 (LXX xal ated τὸν κλοιὸν αὐτοῦ στιβαρῶς) : RV ‘and that ladeth himself with pledges’ (sc. which he has taken from the nations, and whose restitu- tion is at last pumped [cf. Job 201 16. 20)), AV ‘thick clay’ and Vulg. /utwm densewm are due to understanding »’»2y as two words, 2y (constr.) and op ‘clay,’ cf. Ex 19° jsya aya ‘in a thick cloud.’
3. 2, Qaland Hithp., ‘ to be surety,’ ‘to give a ledge,’ ‘to make a wager.’ Thus in 2K 18%= s 36° the Rabshakeh says in his message to Heze-
kiah, ‘ Now, therefore, I pray thee, give pledges (AVm ‘hostages’) to my master the king of Assyria’ (22yn7, μίχθητε. The correct sense is undoubtedly that given in RVm ‘make a wager,’ by handing over a pledge to be forfeited in case of failure to furnish men to mount the 2000 horses offered by the Assyrian king. The noun 73 y is tr. ‘pledge’ in 1S 178 ‘Look how thy brethren fare and take their pledge’ (nan opaqy-ny, A ὅσα ἂν χρήζωσιν γνώσῃ, Luc. καὶ εἰσοίσεις μοι τὴν ἀγγελίαν αὐτῶν), i.e. ‘bring back some token of their wel- fare’ (Driver), which had probably been agreed upon beforehand. This yields an excellent sense, and there appears to be no sufficient reason (with many scholars, including H. P. Smith) to doubt the correctness of the MT. The cognate form 1.31} (LXX ἀρραβών, ef. the NT use of this word for the ‘earnest’ of the Spirit in 2 Co 1” 5°, Eph 14; see art. EARNEST) is used in Gn 3817: 18. 30 of the pledge (consisting of his staff and signet ring) which Judah gave to Tamar as security for the fulfilment of his promise to send her a kid. J. A. SELBIE.
PLEIADES.—The three passages (Am 58, Job 9° 38") which contain the proper noun boa (Késil, Orion) also mention 732 (Avma), and the Eng. Versions have in each case taken the latter to be the Pleiades, their rendering, ‘the seven stars,’ in the first of these passages, obviously pointing to the asterism which they call Pleiades in the other two.* The Pleiades are a group of stars, seven larger and some smaller, in the constellation of the Bull, near the ecliptic, belonging to the northern hemisphere. To the ancients the rising and setting of this group announced respectively the beginning and end of the season of navigation. Hence their name is usually derived from the Greek πλέω, ‘to sail,’ though others would connect it with πλέος, ‘full,’ and understand the reference to be to their being apparently closely packed together. Josephus, in one of his rare references to astro- nomical phenomena, employs ‘the setting of the Pleiades’ to mark a date (ἀπέ. xu. viii. 2). The common Arabic name for these stars is el-negm, i.e. the star group par excellence, because they serve
* Lockyer, The Dawn of Astronomy, p. 134, remarks: ‘The seven stars are held by many to mean the Pleiades, and not the Great Bear; but this, I think, is very improbable.’ Yet Lockyer has admitted, p. 133, that the Pleiades are mentioned in Job
| 8841, and there is no good reason why the original word should | have diverse senses in the two passages.
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the nomads and ts as calendar and time- measurer, especi by their monthly conjunctions with the moon. it has been shown recently that in Egypt the rising of the Pleiades was watched for astronomical ‘even in pyramid times,’ and that three Greek temples—the archaic temple to Minerva at Athens (B.C. 1530), the Hecatompe- don (B.C. 1150), on whose site the Parthenon was subsequently built, and the temple of Minerva at Sunium (B.C. 845)—were orientated, the first two to the rising and the third to the setting of 7 Tauri in the Pleiades [see Lockyer, pp. 418, 419]. The verb kim, from which Kima must be derived, is not found in biblical Hebrew. In Syriac the cognate verb is frequently employed in the sense of ‘heaping up.’ In Arabic kKumat=‘a heap.’ In Assyri lace =‘a cently The name Kima would thus seem peculiar ae ee to the Pleiades. The ancient VSS of the Bible, though somewhat wavering, are on the whole in favour of the identification. The LXX at Job 9° has’Apx- τοῦρον, at Job 38" Πλειάδα, at Am δ᾽ it follows a corrupt text. The Pesh. and the Targ. retain the Hebrew word. <Aq., Symm., and Theod. all use Πλειάδα at Am 5%. Jerome varies between Hyades (Job 9°), Pleiades (Job 38"), and Arcturus (Am δ). An attempt has been made by Hoffmann (‘ Versuche zu Amos,’ ΖΑ ΤῊ, 1883) to prove that Kima is Sirius. The chief arguments are that Sirius, Orion, the Hyades, and the Pleiades — the order which, on this interpretation, is followed at Job 38"-*2 are ranged in the sky in this order, almost in a straight line; and, moreover, that an accurate picture of natural phenomena is thus obtained. ‘Dost thou keep bound the refreshing influences of Sirius, and dost thou let loose the outpourings of Orion?’ The reference would then be to the rise and overflow of the Nile, which was heralded each year by the heliacal rising of Sirius on the day of the summer solstice. But this in- terpretation depends partly on the conjectural alteration of the word nizy'o into m280, which we