JOSIAH
903
The father was Chjjias (Jn 19-^) ; but of him, a« of his son Joses, nothing certain is known. Botli must have been familiar to the members of the early Christian community ; but the Syriac ver- sions are against the identification of Clopas with Alphseus, and Hegesippus does not say enough (Eus. HE iii. 11) to warrant the conclusion that Joses was a nepliew of Joseph of Nazareth.
R. W. Moss. JOSIAH. — The well - known king of Judah, named in our Lord's genealogy (Mt I"'-).
JOT. — This modern spelling of the AV, followed by RV, which has discarded the 16th cent. ' iote ' (in Tindale, Coverdale, Cranmer ' iott ') of Rhemish, Bishops', AV (1611), somewhat obscures the ety- mology of the word, which is simply a translitera- tion of the Greek term (i'iDTa= ' i '). Wyclif's trans- lation and paraphrase ('oon i, timt is lest lettre') was not adopted by any of the subsequent English versions. The Greek trisyllable being pronounced 'jota' (cf. Spanish 'jota,' German ' jota,' 'jodt,' ' jott,' ' jot '), the reduction to the monosyllable ' lote ' (pronounced ' jote ') with its variants ' ioyt,' 'ioit' (Scots form : see J. Knox, Hist. Rcf. 1572, Wks. 1846, i. 107 ; and Davidson, Convmend. Vprichtnes, 152 (1573), in Satir. P. Ref. xl.) and 'lott,' was natural and normal. The German authorized version is still Luther's paraphrase ; 'der kleinste Buchstabe' for which Weizsacker prefers the transliteration : ' ein Jota,' while the French versions also transliterate : ' un (seul) iota.'
The proverbial phrase Iwra iv i) y.la Kepala (Mt 5" only) derives its point from the fact that ICrra in the Greek alphabet, like its equivalent letter and original yod in the Hebrew, is the smallest char- acter. In fact, as Dr. Hastings notes (s.v. in DB), the yod being more distinctively the smallest, pro- vides an argument in favour of those who regard Aramaic as the language of Jesus.
After Tindale's introduction of the word (1526), its meaning, derived from the passage above cited , was not so much ' the least letter or written part of any writing,' as in a more general application ' the very least,' ' a whit,' and was usually pre- ceded by a negative expressed or implied. Thus : Bale (1538), God^s Promises, iii. in Dodsley O. PI. i. 1 : 'I wyll not one iote, Lord, from thy wyll dyssent'; Shaksfieare (1596), Merck, of Ven.: ' This bond doth giue thee here no iot of bloud ' ; Spenser (1595), Sonncta, Ivii. : 'That wonder is how I should Hue a iot.'
P. Henderson Aitken.
JOTHAM.— A king of Judah, named in our Lord's genealogy (Mt P).
JOURNEY.— See Travel.
JOY In the Greek of the NT there are two
verbs, with their corresponding nouns, used to express the idea of joy. These are a.yaKKi.q.v , 6,yaK\tacnty and x'^^P^^") X^P^-
The word dyaWifv conveys rather the idea of exultation or exuberant "ladness, and is a favourite with St. Luke, who has been called the 'most pro- found psychologist among the Evangelists.' It i.s in the pages of his Gospel also that we find the most frequent mention of circumstances of joy attending the proclamation and reception of the gospel message, and the whole character of his writing reveals our Lord in the most joyous rela- tion to His own disciples and to the world at large. The Gr. word for 'gospel' {fvayyi\ioi>) means 'good tidings,' or, as it is described in Lk 2"', in the message of the angel to the shepherds, ' good tidings of great joy' {evayy(\l^oiJ.ai. xjn'iv x'^P^" neyd\7iv). In the case of the angel messenger to Zaeharias, the two words are combined in his
greeting. Thus at the very outset the
of joy
attends the prophecy of even the harsher ministry of John the Baptist. 'Thou shalt,' says the angel, ' have joy and gladness (xapii "o-l dyaWiaai.^), and many shall rejoice (xa/jiiffo^rai) at his birth' (Lk 1"). Another strange attendant circumstance of the joy of these days that preceded our Lord's incarnation is the utterance of Elisabeth, who, when Mary, the predestined mother of the Messiah, comes to visit her, cries out in an ecstasy of wonder and joy, ' Behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leapt in my womb for joy' (v.''^). In the same scene there immediately follows the song of thanksgiving known in the Church as the Magnificat (wh. see), which is pervaded by the spirit of joy, and in which the word ' rejoiced ' occurs at the very out- set (v.").
When we turn to the historical account of the beginnings of the proclamation of the gospel, we find that, according to Jn.'s narrative, when John the Baptist declared the coming of the Greater than himself, he heralded His advent in the words, ' He that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bride- groom's voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled ' ( Jn Z^).
This statement is rather remarkable in the light of the accounts of the Baptist's ministry given in the Synoptics. There the ascetic note is much more prominent, and it is our Lord who says that, because John came 'neither eatinj; nor drniliinf;,' the people supposed he had a devil (Mt 11'" I' T,k T*') A^'hrllier we are to think that the Fourth EvaTiL-.li I i "I . in.-l l.:i,k the conception of his Lord's ministry iiil" ! i ' ription