3. The widow of Nain (Lk T"'"), a little town situated a few miles to the south of Mount Tabor in Galilee, to whom our Lord uttered His com- passionate 'Weep not' just before restoring her only son to life. The people who witnessed the miracle exclaimed that a great prophet had risen up among them, probably with reference to Elijah or Elisha, the former o\ whom, like Christ, had raised a widow's son.
4. The poor widow who cast her two mites into the treasury (Mk 12«-**, Lk 2\^-% whom Christ commended. It should not be forgotten in prac- tical applications of this incident and of our Lord's praise of the widow, that she cast in ' all her living,' that is to say, her day's entire income, or ' all that she had to live upon until more should be earned ' (Swete), and that consequently the phrase ' Avidow's mite' is incorrectly applied to small sums de- ducted, and more or less easily spared, from a daily income.
In addition to these four AvidoAvs, Avho Avere actual persons, a Avidow is a character in one of our Lord's parables (Lk IS^"^), Avho, having no poAver to enforce the justice she claims, obtains it at length by her importunity ; and from this our Lord draAvs His a fortiori conclusion that God Avill hear and ansAver those who cry day and night unto Him. Further, AvidoAvs are referred to by Christ (Mt 23^* [omitted by RV], Mk 12«, Lk 20«) as being often cruelly oppressed and defrauded by the Pharisees of His day.
It may be regarded as certain that our Lord's mother Avas a AvidoAv during the time of His ministry, hence His recommendation of her, just before His death, to the beloved disciple (Jn IQ'-^^'-).
The honourable and important position Avhich Avidows occupied in the early Church is entirely in harmony AAith the respectful and sympathetic tone in Avhich they are referred to in the above places of the Gospels.
In the Lewis MS of the Syriac Gospels the Syrophoenician woman (Mk 726) is described as a widow. This may be another instance of the possible confusion of ' widow ' and ' Gentile ' alluded to above. ALBERT BONUS.
WIFE {yvvq). — For the general subject see Family, Marriage, Woman.
Our Lord places the claims of a Avife above those of a father or mother, and emphasizes in the most striking Avay the spiritual and bodily unity, indis- soluble except for one cause, of the tAvo who have been joined together in marriage (Mt IQ^^-, Mk 102*^- ). And precisely because of His exalted con- ception of a Avife's place in her husband's heart. He teaches the absoluteness of His own claims on the loyalty and obedience of His disciples, by setting them clearly in a man's eyes over against those of the Avife of his bosom. It Avas on the same occasion on which He pronounced Avhat might be called the Magna Charta of married Avomanhood that He uttered those solemn Avords about the need of forsaking a Avife for His sake and the gospel's (Mt 1928, Mk 102»; cf. Lk 1829). And in the parable of the Great Supper, among the rejected excuses of those Avho do not accept the gracious invitation, is that of the man Avho said, ' I have married a wife, and therefore I can- not come ' (Lk 14i"). J.C.Lambert.
WILD BEASTS.— See Animals in vol. i. p. 64'' f.
WILDERNESS.— The Avord or Avords (more or less synonymous) Avhich the EV tr. by ' Avilderness ' or ' desert ' afibrd a striking example of the diffi- culties Avhich translators, and after them the ordinary readers of Holy Scripture, have to con- tend Avith, because that Avord does not convey to our mind the idea of something Ave know : in our Avestern European countries there is not, properly speaking, any desert or Avilderness, in the Biblical sense of the AVord. Thus, unable to consult our own experience, Ave have to fall back upori books we have read, and upon notions obtained in that Avay. Immediately there rises in our memory the vieAv of a desert of sand, stretching itself out of sight in a complete solitude, and giving to the caravans of travellers scarcely any other choice but death from thirst, or burial under the moving soil bloAvn up by some terrible Avindstorm. Such is the classical representation of a desert or Avilder- ness, and it is a constant source of errors for the understanding of numerous passages of the Bible Avhere that Avord occurs. There is no ' desert of sand' either in Palestine or in the neighbouring countries. In fact, the HebreAv Avord Avhich is usually tr. ' desert ' or ' Avilderness ' (midbar) does not in the least convey the idea of solitude or desolation ; on the contrary, it belongs to a root Avhich means ' to pasture,' and therefore, etymo- logically, ' feeding-ground ' or ' pasture-land ' Avould seem to be the most exact translation. But if we should adopt it, another ambiguity Avould be created, and a false notion suggested. Indeed, for a European reader, a pasture is a meadoAv Avith abundant grass, which is not at all true of the Palestinian midbar.
For a correct understanding of the meaning of the Avord 'Avilderness' in the Bible, one has to remember that there Avere— and are still— nomads in Bible lands. Those people are not addicted to agricultural life, but to the breeding of cattle; they live on the borders of cultivated lands, be- tAveen these and other regions which are either uninhabitable or practically uninhabited. The territories held by those nomads— called BedaAvin in modern times— are not Avithout Avater and grass ; but these indispensable resources, required for the herds, are both scarce, and the tribes of shepherds are compelled to remove their camps from one place to another for feeding and watering their cattle. The midbar is therefore essentially the ground occupied by nomad tribes ; it forms around agricultural districts a zone variable in extension