BIZJOTIIJAH
827
BLACKBURN
word used in describing the building of the walls of Babylon, which we know were cemented with bitumen (Gen. xiv, 10 ; xi, 3). These pits or fountains appear to have been of considerable extent. The valley in which they were situated is indeed called Siddim ; but it is said to have been adjacent to the salt sea, and it contained Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xiv, 2, 3, 10- 12). The streams that anciently watered the plain re- main to attest the accuracy of the sacred historian, but the pits of asphaltum are no longer to be seen. Dili they disappear in consequence of the catastrophe of the plain?" (Bib. Researches, ii, G03). In ancient times bitumen was a valuable article of commerce, and found a ready market in Egypt, where it was used in large quantities for embalming the dead; it was also occasionally employed as a substitute for stone. The Egyptians, according to Pliny, made use of bitu- men in making water-tight the small boats of platted papyrus-reed which are commonly used on the Nile : the same is done at this day to the Geiser (or Gopher) boats of the Euphrates, and the asphaltic coracles of the Tigris. The little reed-boat in which the mother of Moses exposed her child on the Nile (Exod. ii, 3) was made tight with pitch of this kind. There are also remarkable bituminous wells along the Upper Jor- dan, three miles west of Hasbeiya (Thomson, Land and Book, i, 335). See Asphaltum.
Bizjoth'jah (Ileb. Bizyotheyak', i"Pfri"iT3, accord- ing to Gesenius, contempt of Jehovah ; according to Fiirst, for FPT"PT~n'12, house of the olives of Jehovah, i. e. superior olive-yard ; Sept. Bi£t wSt'a, but most cop- ies omit; Vulg. Baziothia), a town in the south of Ju- dah (i. e. in Simeon), named in connection with Beer- sheba and Baalah (Josh, xv, 28) in such a way (the copulative being omitted) as to make it identical with the Litter = Bizjothjah-Baalah, and so the enumera- tion in ver. 32 requires; compare the parallel passage, ch. xix, 2, 3, where the simple Balaii (doubtless the same) occurs in almost precisely the same order. See Judaii. In ch. xix, 8 it is also called Baalath-beer, which is there farther identified with " Ramath of the south," and is elsewhere mentioned under still other similar names (Baal, Bilhah), and yet again as Leiii (q. v.) ; from all which titles we may conclude that it lay on an eminence (Ramah) near a well (Beer), in a fruitful spot (Bizjoth), and was at one time a site of the worship of Baal (Baalath), whose name (as in some other instances) was eventually replaced by that of Jah. See Ramath-Nekeb.
Biz'tha (Heb. Bizlha ', £<r*2, according to Ge- senius, for the Persian beste, "castrated;" but Fiirst compares the last syllable with the Sanscrit zata, "horn;" the termination -tha is evidently Persic; comp. Bigtha ; Sept. WaZta v. r. Ba'£dv), the second of the seven eunuchs ("chamberlains") of the harem of Xerxes (Ahasuerus) who were ordered to bring Vashti forth for exhibition (Esth. i, 10). B.C. 483.
Black (usually some form of Tip, hadar', to be dushj, or "iHd, shachor' , swarthy ; fteXacj. Although the Orientals do not wear black in mourning, yet, like the ancient Jews, they regard the color as a symbol of affliction, disaster, and privation. In fact, the custom of wearing black in mourning is a sort of visible ex- pression of what is in the East a figure of speech. In Scripture blackness is used as symbolical of afflictions occasioned by drought and famine (Job xxx, 30; Jer. xiv, 2 ; Lam. iv, 8 ; v, 10). "Whether this be founded on any notion that the hue of the complexion was deepened by privation has not been ascertained; but it has been remarked by Chardin and others that in the periodical mourning of the Persians for Hossein many of those who take part in the ceremonies appear with their bodies blackened, in order to express the extremity of thirst and heat which Hossein suffered, and which, as is alleged, was so great that he turned
black, and the tongue swelled till it protruded from his mouth. In Mai. iii, 1-1, we read, "What profit is it that we keep his ordinances, and that we have walked in blackness (Auth. Vers, "mournfully") before the Lord of Hosts ;" meaning that they had fasted in sackcloth and ashes. "Black" occurs as a symbol of fear in Joel ii, G: "All faces shall gather blackness," or darken with apprehension and distress. This use of the word may be paralleled from Virgil (+-En. ix, 719 ; Georg. iv, 468). The same expression which Joel uses is employed by Nahum (ii, 111) to denote the ex- tremity of pain and sorrow. In Zech. vi, 2-6, four chariots are represented drawn by horses of different colors, which have usually been supposed to denote the four great empires of the world in succession : the As- syrian or Babylonian, the Persian, Grecian, and Bo- man, distinguishable both by their order and attri- butes ; the black horses in that case seeming to denote the Persian empire, which, by subduing the Chaldseans, and being about to inflict a second heavy chastisement on Babylon, quieted the spirit of Jehovah (v. 8) with respect to Chaldaea, a country always spoken of as ly- ing to the north of Judaea. But the color here is prob- ably, as elsewhere, only symbolical in general of the utter devastation of Babylon by the Persians (see Hen- derson, Comment, in loc). The figure of a man seat- ed on a black horse, with the balance to weigh corn and the other necessaries of life, is employed in Rev. vi, 5 to signify great want and scarcity, threatening the world with famine, a judgment of God next to the sword. Also, "The sun became black as sack- cloth of hair" (Rev. vi, 12) is a figure employed, as some think, to describe the state of the Church during the last and most severe of the persecutions under the heathen Roman empire. Great public calamities are often thus figuratively described by earthquakes, eclipses, and the like, as if the order of nature were inverted. In connection with this subject it may be remarked that black is studiously avoided in dress by all Orientals, except in certain garments of hair or wool, which are naturally of that color. Black is also sometimes imposed as a mark of humiliating distinc- tion by dominant nations upon subject or tributary tribes, the most familiar instance of which is the obli- gation laid upon the Jews in Turkey of wearing black turbans. — Kitto, s. v. See Color.