Meni (Heb. Meni', 13^, from Tili'O, to distribute; Sept. ryxj;,Yulg. ea, i. e.fortuna, just mentioned [see Gai>] ; Auth. Yers. " that number," marg. "]Meni"), ap- parenth' an idol which the captive Israelites worshipped by libations (lectisternia), after the custom of the Bab- ylonians (Isa. Ixvi, 11), and probably symbolical of des- tiny (a sense indicated by the first clause of the next verse), like the Arabic manan.fate (from the same root), and the Greek fiolpa. Pococke (^Specim. hist. A rab. p. 92) has pointed out the resemblance to Mandt, an idol of the ancient Arabs (Koran, Sur. liii, 19. 20), "What think ye of Allat, and Al-Uzzah, and Manah, that other third goddess?" Manah was the object of worship of "the tribes of Hudheyl and Kuza'ah, who dwelt be- tween Mekkeh and El-IMedineh, and, as some say, of the tribes of Ows, El-Khazraj, and Thakik also. This idol was a large stone, demolished by one Saad in the
eighth year of the flight, a year so fatal to the idols of Arabia" (Lane's Sel.from the Kur-dn, pref. p. 30, 31). But Al-Zamakhshari, the commentator on the Koran, derives Manah from a root signifying "to flow," be- cause of the blood which flowed at the sacrifices to this idol, or, as Mill explains it, because the ancient idea of the moon was that it was a star full of moisture, with which it filled the sublunarj' regions.
" That the word is a proper name, and also the proper name of an object of idolatrous worship cultivated by the Jews in Babylon, is a supposition which there seems no reason to question, as it is in accordance with the context, and has every probability to recommend it. But the identification of jNIeni with any known heathen god is stiU uncertain. The versions are at variance. In the Sept. the word is rendered ' fortune' or ' luck.' The old Latin version of the clause is ' impletis dcsmoni potionem;' while Symmachus (as quoted by Jerome) must have had a diiferent reading, 1313, ininni, ' without me,' which Jerome interprets as signifying that the act of worship implied in the drink-offering was not per- formed for God, but for the daamon (' ut doceat non sibi fieri sed doemoni'). The Targum of Jonathan is very vague — ' and mingle cups for their idols ;' and the Syr- iac translators either omit the word altogether, or had a different reading, perhaps T^P, Idmo, 'for them.' Some viiriatiou of the same kind apparently gave rise to the super earn of the Yulgate, referring to the ' table' men- tioned in the first clause of the verse. From the old versions we com& to the commentators, and their judg- ments are equally conflicting. Jerome {Comm. in Fs, Ixv, 11) illustrates the passage by reference to an an- cient idolatrous custom which prevailed in Egypt, and especially at Alexandria, on the last day of the last month of the year, of placing a table covered with dishes of various kinds, and a cup mixed with mead, in acr knowledgment of the fertility of the past year, or as an omen of that which was to come (comp.Yirgil,^i'«, ii, 763). But he gives no clue to the identification of Meni, and his explanation is evidently suggested by the renderings of the Sept. and the old Latin version ; .the former, as he quotes them, translating Gad by 'fortune,' and Meni by ' dajmon,' in which they are followed by the latter. In the later mythology of Egypt, as we learn from Macrobius (^Saturn, i, 19), AalfUDV and Thxn were two of the four deities who presided over birth, and represented respectively the Sun and Moon. A passage quoted by Selden {De Dis Syris, i, c. 1) from a MS. of Yettius Yalens of Antioch, an ancient astrol- oger, goes also to prove that in the astrological lan- guage of his day the sun and moon were indicated by Saifiwv and tvxi], as being the arbiters of human des- tiny. This circumstance, coupled with the similarity between Meni and M//i' or M/jv?/, the ancient name for the moon, has induced the majority of commentators to conclude that Meni is the INIoon god or goddess, the Deus Lunus, or Dea Lima of the Romans ; masculine as regards the earth which she illumines {teri-ce maritus), feminine with respect to the sun (soils uxor), from whom she receives her light. This twofold character of the moon is thought by David Mill to be indicated in the two names Gad and Meni, the former feminine, the latter masculine (DL^s. v, § 23) ; but ' as both iire masculine in Hebrew, his speculation falls to the groinnl. Le Moyne, on the other hand, regarded both words as denoting the sun, and his double worship among the Egyptians : Gad is then the goat of Mendes, and Meni = Mnevis worshipped at Heliopolis,. The opinion of Huetius that the Meni of Isaiah and the M>']v of Strabo (xii, c, 31) both denoted the sun, was refuted by Vi- tringa and others. Among those who have interpreted the word literally ' number' may be reckoned Jarchi and Abarbanel, who'understand by it the -number' of the priests that formed the company of revellers at the feast, and later Hoheisel (Obs. ad. diffic. Jes. loca, p. 349) fol- lowed in the same track. Kimchi, in his note on Isa.