The river Chaboras (Khabur), entering the Euphrates from the east near Circesium, marks olf the three divisions of Mesopotamia— (a) the north- ern tracts on its west side, (b) the similar tracts to east of it, and (c) the steppe-land stretching away south to the Median Wall. As to (a), the north- western tracts bore the name of Osrhcene, or Orrhoene, in Seleucid times, and the chief city of the district was Urfa, the Edessa of the Greeks and Romans. To the south of Urfa lie the ruins of Harran, and along the western bank of the Habor stretched Gauzanitis, the Hebrew Gozan, to which Israelites were deported by the king of Assyria (2 K 17^). As to (4), the principal city
of the north-eastern region was Nisibis, a busy trading centre and a place of frequent conflict between Roman and Persian armies. As to (c), the southern region of Mesopotamia contained several cities of importance. Among these may be mentioned Corsothe, Anatho, and Is (on the Euphrates), and Atrai and Csenae (on the Tigris). Along the banks of the two rivers, in this southern country, was a belt of cultivated land, outside of which the conditions were (for the most part) those of the Syrian Desert.
Mesopotamia was constantly being crossed and traversed by armies and caravans in ancient times, anil was repeatedly a scene of conflict between the nations of the West and of the Farther East. In the earliest times, its history was closely bound up with that of Babylonia on the south. The Baby- lonians held predominance for long periods, in- fluencing the civilization to a very considerable extent. At the same time, the land lay open to Syria and Arabia, whose tribes were constantly breaking across its borders. From the Telel- Amarna tablets and certain Egyptian tribute-lists, it appears that a non-Semitic people, called Mitani, occupied the district of Naharin between 1700 and 1400 B.C. Harran was probably their cajjital city. After the Mitani supremacy, the country fell under the rule of the Assyrian kings, and in the 10th cent. B.C. seems to have become part of Assyria proper. When the Assyrian power declined, Mesopotamia was overrun (as it had been more or less all along) by Aramaean hordes from the west and south.
LiTERATBRE.— £Bi iii. 3050-3057 ; H. Winckler, History oj Babylonia and Assyria, Eng. tr., 1907.
A. W. Cooke. MESSIAH.— See Christ, Cheistology.
METAPHOR. — Metaphor has been defined as 'the figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object ditierent from, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable' (OED, s.v.). Again, 'in metaphor a word in the sentence to be expressed is replaced by a word denoting an object in some respect similar ; frequently it is an abstract word which is replaced by a concrete ' (L. E. Browne, The Parables of the Gospels, p. 2). Simile, on the other hand, is used simply of explicit comparison, often introduced in English by either 'like' or 'as.' A parable is an extended simile, and an allegory an extended metaphor. It is only in modern languages that the various forms of figurative speech have become sharply distinguished. Thus the Greek TrapafioX-ri in the NT means not only ' parable ' but ' comparison ' (He 9'), and in Lk 4^ the proverb or adage ' Physician, heal thyself,' is called napa^oXri. Likewise the Heb. 'rfa means not only ' parable ' but ' by-word,' ' similitude ' ; and it is used more generally still of ethical maxims, didactic poems, or odes. But, though definitions ditt'er slightly, the meaning of the English 'metaphor' is now generally standardized.
According to Konig, ' Metaphor springs from the putting together of comparable instances of the material and visible and the ideal spheres ' (Stilis- tik, Rhetorik, Poetik in Bezug avf die biblische Litteratur komparativisch dargestellt). Thus he does not agree with W. Reichel, who in his Sjirachpsyckologische Studicn (1897, p. 179) says: 'There is really no essential ditt'erence between actual and metaphorical designation.' 'Accord- ing to my view,' says Konig, ' there is still an essential difl'erence in method of expression when the sphere of existence of both ideas that appear in the subject and predicate is the same, and when it is ditierent.'
Konig divides metaphor into four classes: (1) both ideas are in the inanimate sphere, such as the
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METAPHOR
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association of joy with lij^lit. and sorrow witli darkness ; (2) an idea is taken from the inanimate sphere to the animate, e.g. the term ' Kock ' a|)iilied to God (frequently in the Psalms and elsewhere in the OT) ; (3) both ideas are in the animate spliere, e.g. the comparison of a man to a lion, bear, pantlier, dog or swine, serpent, eagle, raven, etc. ; (4) an idea is transferred from the animate sphere to the inanimate, e.g. ' the tops of the mountains' (Heb. 'lieads'), and the 'face of the waters' (Gn 1-). Closely connected with the last is the idea of personification : e.g. inanimate objects are bidden hearken to the word of God, as in Is 1^, ' Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth.'
Not only are there no parables outside the Synoptists, but the use of metaphorical language is both more complicated and more extended. We still have the familiar conceptions drawn from everyday life — sowing, reaping, and harvest, animals and birds, the seasons, light and dark- ness, life and death — but as the scene shifts from the hillsides of Nazareth and the streets of Jeru- salem to the busy cities of the Grseco-Roman world with their ceaseless and varied activity, there are many phrases and metaphors in the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse which could hardly have fallen from the lips of our Lord Himself. Many of these expressions, too, have since so become part of ordinary theological language that we do not always at first see that they are metaphors at all.