If the words ' Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia' are retained, they allude to the historical connexion of the Hagarenes (Ps 83*') or Hagarites (1 Ch 5^"), the'A7/)atot of Eratosthenes [ap. Strabo, XVI. iv. 2) — of whom Hagar was no doubt a personi- fication— with Arabia. (In Bar 3^^ the Arabians are called the 'sons of Hagar.') But the Greek is extremely uncertain, and Bentley's conjecture, that we have here a gloss transferred to the text, has (as Lightfoot says [Gal.^, 1876, p. 193]), much to recom- mend it. The theory that ' Hagar ' (Arab, hajar, ' a stone ') was a name sometimes given to Mt. Sinai, and that St. Paul, becoming acquainted with this usage during his sojourn in Arabia, recalls it here (A. P. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, new ed., 1877, p. 50, following Chrysostom, Luther, and others), is unsupported by real evidence. Such an etymo- logical allusion would certainly have been thrown away upon St. Paul's Galatian readers.
To affirm that the Jews, who were wont to say that ' all Israel are the children of kings,' were the sons of Hagar the bondwoman, was to use language which could not but be regarded as insulting and oftensive. But in fighting the battle of freedom St. Paul required to use plain speech and forcible illustrations. If he was convinced that men niigiit be sons of Abraham and yet spiritual slaves, he was bound to say so (cf. the still stronger terms used on the same point in Jn 8^*). St. Paul was far too good a patriot to jibe at his own race, and too good a Christian to wound any one wantonly. But he saw the unhappy condition of his country- men in the light of his own experience. He had lived long under the shadow of Sinai in Arabia, the land of bondmen, before he became a free citizen of the ideal commonwealth — Hierusalem qum sur- sum est — the mother of all Christians. Only an emancipated spirit could write the Epistle to the Galatians, or (as its sequel) Luther's Freedom of a Christian Man. James Steahan.
HAIL (xdXafa). — The invariable biblical con- ception of hail is correctly represented in Wis 5^ : ' As from an engine of war shall be hurled hail- stones full of wrath.' Typical instances of the use of hail as a weapon of Divine judgment and war- fare are found in Ex 9"*'-, Jos 10'^. Like other destructive natural forces, it is a familiar category in apocalyptic prophecy. It is always regarded as a 'plague' (ttXjjyt?, Ilev 16^'). 'Hail and fire,' 'lightnings . . . and great hail,' occur together (8^ IP^), as in Ex 9-'* : ' hail, and fire mingling with (flashing continually amidst) the hail.' Thunder- storms often arise ' under the conditions that are favourable to the formation of hail, i.e. great heat, a still atmosphere, the production of strong local convection currents in consequence, and the passage of a cold upper drift' (EBr^^ xii. 820). True hail, which is to be distinguished from so-called '.'soft hail,' is formed of clear or granular ice. Impinging hailstones are often frozen together, and sometimes
great ragged masses of ice fall with disastrous results to life and property. The seventh angel having poured his bowl upon the air, ' great hail, every stone about a talent in weight, cometli down out of heaven upon men' (Rev 16^^). Diodorus Siculus (xix. 45) writes of storms in which ' the size of the hail was incredible, for the stones fell a mina in weight, sometimes even more, so that many houses fell under their weight and not a few men were killed.' The mina was about 2 lbs. — the sixtieth part of a talent. James Strahan.
HAIR. — By primitive and ancient peoples in general, the hair [6pl^, Tplx^s) is regarded as a special centre of vitality, and to this belief the various forms of the hair-otfering are ultimately due. The only examples of this pi-actice in the literature under review are afforded by St. Paul's vow, according to which he cut off his hair at CenchrefB (Ac 18^**), and by the similar vows of the four men at Jerusalem, whose expenses St. Paul paid as an evidence of his Jewish piety (21'^^). These are to be explained from the Nazirite vow of the OT (Nu 6). Josephus writes of his own times that ' it is usual with those who had been afflicted either with a distemper, or with any other distresses, to make vows ; and for thirty days before, they are to offer their sacrifices, to abstain from wine, and to shave the hair off their head' (BJ II. XV. 1). St. Paul would accordingly offer at Jerusalem the hair that had grown during the month since the vow began at Cenchrese. The same belief in the peculiar vitality of the hair may underlie the proverbial reference to it : ' there shall not a hair perish from the head of any of you ' (Ac 27'^ ; cf. 1 S 14«, 2 S 14", 1 K p2, Mt lO'", Lk 21'^), though the number and minuteness of the separate hairs are also implied.
The elaborate arrangement and adornment of the hair are found in primitive as well as in advanced civilizations {e.g. see the illustrations of male Fijians in Lubbock's Origin of Civilization^, 1902, pi. ii. p. 68). The art was highly developed amongst Greek and Roman women, as may be seen from coins, etc., belonging to this period (reproduc- tions in Seyffert, Diet, of Classical Antiquities, 1906, pp. 266, 267 ; J. E. Sandys,^ Companion to Latin Studies, 1910, p. 198). Ovid, in his instruc- tions to Roman ladies on the art of winning lovers, emphasizes the effect of an artistic and appropriate arrangement of the hair (de Art. Am. iii. 136 f. ; cf. Bigg, St. Peter and St. Jude, 1901, p. 152). Judith ' braided the hair of her head ' when she set out to fascinate Holofernes ( Jth 10'), and there are Talnuulic references to the art (Buxtorf's Lexicon, 1639, col. 389 ; Cheyne, EBi ii. col. 1941). Against such elaborate adornment and all that it might imply, the apostolic warnings (1 P 3', 1 Ti 2" ; see art. ADORNING) are directed.