Meadow, a term used in the A. V. as the transla- tion of two Ileb. words, neither of whicli seems to have this meaning. We adopt substantially the explanations of them found in Smith's I)ictionai-y, s. v. See Abel. 1. Gen. xli,2 and 18. Here the wonl in the original is WXn (with the delinite article), ha-Achii'. It ap- pears to be an Egyptian term, literally transferred into the Hebrew text, as it is also into that of the Alexan- drian translators, who give it as r(jj "Ax^i. (This is tlie reading of Codex A. Codex B, if we may accept the edition of Mai, has t'Xoe ; so also the rendering of Aquila and Symmachus, and of Josephus [Atit. ii, 5, 5]. An- other version, quoted in the fragments of the Hexapla, attempts to reconcile sound and sense by ox^n- '^^^ Veneto-Greek has Xtifiwv.) The same form is retained by the Coptic version. Its use in Job viii, 11 (A.V. "flag")— where it occurs as a parallel to yu/ne (A.V. "rush"), a word used in Exod. ii,3 for the "bulrushes" of which ;Moses's ark was composed— seems to show that it is not a " meadow," but some kind of reed or water- plant. This the Sept. supports, both by rendering in the latter passage jiovTojiov, and also by introducing '.4xt as the ecjuivjilent of the word rendered "paper- reeds"' in Isa. xix, 7. Jerome, in his commentary on the passage, also contirms this meaning. He states that he was informed by learned Egyptians that the word acki denoted in their tongue any green thing that grew in a marsh— ow««? quod in pahide virens nascitur. But, as during high inundations of the Nile — such inundations as are the cause of fruitful years — the whole of the land on either side is a marsh, and as the cultivation extends up to the very lip of the river, is it not possible that Achu may denote the herbage of the growing crops'? The fact that the cows of Pliaraoh's vision were feeding there would seem to be as strong a figure as could be presented to an ICgyi)tian of the extreme fruitfulness of the season : so luxuriant was the growth on either side of the stream, that the very cows fed among it unmo- lested. The lean kine, on the otlier hand, merely stand on the dry brink. See Nii.K. No one appears yet to have attempted to discover on the spot what the signi- fication of the term is. See Rkkd.
2. Judg. XX, 33 only : " the meadows of Gibeah." Here the word is il"^S^, Maareh', which occurs no- where else witli the same vowels attached to it. The sense is thus diuibly uncertain. "Meadows" around Gibeah can certainly never liave existed: the nearest approach to that sense would be ti) take maareh as meaning an open plain. This is the dictum of (iesenius {Thesaiir. p. 1009 ). on the authority of tlie Targum. It is also ado|ited by De Wette (" Die Pliine von G.'"). But. if an open plain, where could the ambush have concealed itself ':• See Plaix.
IVIEAL-TDIE
The Sept., according to the Alex. MS. (the "\'atican Codex transfers the word literally — Mapaaya/St)) read a different Hebrew word — 2"ii'"a — "from the west of Gibeah."' Tremellius, taking the nrnt of the word in a figurative sense, reads " after Gibeah had been left open," i. e. by the quitting of its inhabitants — post denudatio- nem Gibhce. This is adopted by Berthcau (Kurzijef. Ilandh. ad loc). But the most plausible interpretation is that of the Peshito-Syriac, which by a sliglit differ- ence in the vowel-points makes the word rr^^'*, "the cave;" a suggestion quite in keeping with the locality, which is ver\' suitable for caves, and also with the re- quirements of the ambush. The only thing that can be said against this is that the liers-in-wait were " set round about" Gibeah, as if not in one spot, but several. See Gibeah.
Me'ah (Ileb. Medh ', nX"?. a hundred, as often ; Sept tKaTov, Mta ; Vulg. centum, Kmath), a tower in Jerusa- lem, situated on the eastern Avail (^Xeh. iii, 1 ; xii. 39), . probably at the north-eastern angle of the Temple en- closure (Strong's Harmony and Krpos. of the Gospels, Append, ii, p. 19; but it is not likely that the outer wall was different from that of the Temple, as supposed by Dr. Barclay, City of the Great King, p. 152). See Jeku-
SALE.M.
Meal (n^p, ke'mach, in pause ITCp, prob.y«^, i. e. marrow ; hence the fatness of wheat or barley, i. e. its ground substance. Gen. xviii, G; Numb, v, 15; 1 Kings iv, 22 ; xvii, 12, 14, 10 ; 2 Kings iv, 41 ; 1 Chron. xii, 40 ; Isa. xlvii,2 ; IIos. viii, 7; "four," as elsewliere rendered, 1 Sam. i, 24; xxviii, 24; 2 Sam. xvii, 28: Gr. dXivpov, Matt. xiii,33; Luke xiii,21; also r'sb, so ' let h, stripped of its bran, the finest portion of the ground grain. Gen. xviii, 6 [where it stands after the preceding term, in apposition ] ; elsewhere " flour" or "fine flour," Sept. <rf /ii- C'aAic), the ground produce of any species of grain. See Grits. This is usually prepared in the East by females in hand-mills. See Floir.