Mez'ahab (Heb. Mey-Zahab', ntlT i^, water of gold, i. e. of a golden lustre ; Sept. Mai4ow/3, but omits in Chron.; Vulg. Mezaab), the father of Matred and ma- ternal grandfather of Mehetabel, which last was wife of Hadar, or Hadad, the last mentioned of the early Edom- itish kings (Gen. xxxvi, 39; 1 Chron. i, 50), B.C. con,- siderably ante 1619. " His name has given rise to much speculation. Jarchi renders it, ' What is gold?' and ex- plains it, ' He was a rich man, and gold was not valued in his eyes at all.' Abarbanel says he was 'rich and great, so that on this account he was called Mezahab, for the gold was in his house as water.' 'Haggaon' (writes Aben-Ezra) ' said he was a refiner of gold, but others said that it pointed to those who made gold from brass.' The Jerusalem Targum of course could not re- sist the temptation of punning upon the name, and com- bined the explanations given by Jarchi and Haggaon. The latter part of Gen. xxxvi, 39 is thus rendered : ' The
MEZUZAII
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MEZUZAir
name (f his wife is !\relietabol, daughter of Matred, the ] dauglitcr of a relincr of gold, who was wearied with la- I bor (Xn"iV'?> matredu) all the days of his life ; after he , had eaten and was tilled, he turned and said, What is ' gold? and what is silver V A somewhat similar para- phrase is given in the Targiim of the Pseudo-Jonathan, except that it is there referred to INIatred, and not to j Mezahab. The Arabic version translates the name I ' water of gold,' which must have been from the I lebrew, i while in the Targum of Onkelos it is rendered ' refiner i of gold,' as in the (liuestiones llibraica in Puralip., at- tributed to Jerome, and the traditions given above ; which seems to indicate that originally there was some- thing in the Hebrew text, now wanting, which gave [ rise to this rendering, and of which the present reading, "^"0, me;/, is an abbreviation" (Smith).
Mezuzah (nj^T-a) or Mezuzoth (r'T^lT-a), the sing, and plur. forms of a "door-post," the i)lace on which the Mosaic law is interpreted by the Jews as en- joining the Israelites to write passages of Scripture (Deut. vi, 9; xi, 20). In the following account we adopt the article of Dr. Ginsburgin Kitto's Cydopcedia.
1. Si(/nification of the Word, and Desiyn of the In- junction.—The word nTIT^a (from 1M, to push about, to ■move) denotes either that which is most prominent, hence the post of a door, or that on which the door moves, or on which the hinges turn— hence a door-post. This is the sense in which it occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures. From the fact, however, that on it were written passages of the law, the term Jf, :>/:., i/i r-.mn- afterwards synedochically to denote the wiiiiii;; iixlt. or the passages of Scripture affixed to tlic (l(i(ii-iin>i. and this is the sense ia which the word is used in the Chaldee paraphrases, and in the Jewish writings gener- ally. As books were exceedingly rare and expensive in ancient times, and could only be possessed by verj^ few, the practice obtained among the nations of antiquity, and still prevails in the East, of writing, engraving, or painting such sacred mottoes or sage maxims over the doors of dwellings as the parents were especially anxious to record or to impart to their children. Thus the ancient Egyptians had brief hicroglyphical legends over their doorways (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt, ii, 102; Wathen, p. 101) ; the Greeks and Romans had inscriptions over their doors (Virgil, Georg. iii, 26 sq.). Other nations had their laws writ- ten upon their gates (Iluetins, Bemonslratio Evungelica, p. 58) ; and the Jloslcms to the present day, "never set up a gate, cover a fountain, build a bridge, or erect a house, without writing on it choice sentences from the Koran, or from their best poets" (Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 98). Now Moses in this instance, as in many other cases, availed himself of a prevalent cus- tom, in order to keep the divine ])recepts ever before the eyes of the people, and to enable them to instruct their children in the law of God. Hence Maimonides beau- tifully remarks: " The commandment about (he Mezuzah is binding on every one. For whenever an Israelite comes into the house, or goes out, he, seeing on it the name of the Holy (_)ne, blessed be he, will thereby be reminded of his love; and when he awakens from his sleep, and from his thoughts about the vanities of time, he will thereby be led to remember that there is nothing which endures forever and throughout all eternity ex- cept the knowledge of the everlasting Hock, and he will reflect and walk in the paths of righteousness" {Jad Ihi- Chezaka, llih-hoth Ttphillin, vi, 13).
2. The Manner in which this Injunction has been and still is obsei-red.— That the Jews of old literally observed this injunction is not only evident from the above-men- tioned prevailing custom of anti<iuity, but also from Jo- sephus, who distinctly says that the Jews " inscribe the greatest blessings of God upon their doors" (.1 nt. iv, 8, 13) ; from the Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos, who trans- lates Dent, vi, 9 ; xi. 20, " And thou shalt write them ' upon scrolls, and alHx them on the door-posts of thy