Sowing was done by the hand, as often with us, though according to the Gemara {Daba Metsia, fol. 105) the Jews used machines also for this purpose (Otho, Lea-. Rab. p. 685). The seed when sown and the young plants have more enemies in the East than even here: not only drought, hail, mice (1 Sam. vi, 5), fire, but also grasshoppers and locusts (see these words), often destroy ])romising harvests. The following legal regulations are found in the Pentateuch :
1. Two kinds of seed, as wheat and barley, must not be sown on the same land (Lev. xix, 19; comp. Josephus, Ant. iv, 8, 20). The Talmudists (Mishna, Chilaim, ii, 8) say that between two fields sown with different seeds must intervene either fallow ground or a ditch, path, or wall; but the law does not include garden beds {ibid, iii, 1; Shab. ix, 2). Michaelis (Mos. R. iv, 320 sq.) strives to show that the lawgiver meant simply to re- quire a careful sorting of the seed, which is recommend- ed by the ancients as very advantageous (Virgil, Georg. i, 193 sq. ; Varro, R. R. i, 52, 1), and which would ren- der impossible the springing-up of weeds (especially the Lolium temulentuni). But this cannot be supported, and a custom so advantageous to the agriculturist did not need the authority of law. Lappenberg (in the Brem. u. Verdensch. Biblioih. v, 937 sq.) gives a purely theo- logical exposition of it; and perhaps other parts of the law furnish an easier explanation of this class of regula- tions than this one. See Diverse. The more exact requirements of the rabbins will be found in the Mishna {Chilaim, ch. i-iii). They are very trifiing, and some- times show a disposition to evade the law; but even anciently it was not so strictly enforced as to prevent giving a field of barley a border of spelt (Isa. xxviii, 25 ; see marg. A. V.). In general the rule is confined to Palestine, and the Jews do not refuse elsewhere to eiijoj' the fruit of mixed harvests (comp. Hottinger, Ilebr. Leyes, p. 376 stj. ; Darsov, De Modis Seminandi Diversa Semina Ilebr. Vet. [Viteb. I(i95]).
2. Lev. xi, 37 sq. provides that seed set apart for sowing should remain clean if the carcass of a creeping beast fell upon it; but if it had been wet, it shoidd be made unclean, perhaps because wet seed takes up im- purities far ea'sier than dry (comp. the analogy, ver. 34). Similar is the law of purificati<in in the Zendavesta (ii, 335, Kleuker), and a similar distinction of wet and dry is observed among the Arabs still (Niebuhr, Beschr. p. 40). —Winer, ii, 340.
By an easy metaphor, seed, as the prolific principle of future life, is taken in Scripture ior posterity, •whe.th&c of man, beasts, trees, etc., all of which are said to be sown and to fructify as the means of producing a sue-
SEED
506
SEELYE
ceedintj generation (Jer. xxxi, 27). Hence seed de- notes an individual, as Seth in the stead t)f Abel (Gen. iv. '25 etc.), and the whole line of descent; as the seed of Abraham, of Jacob, etc., the seed royal, etc., much in the same acceptation as children. The seed of Abra- ham denotes not only those who descend from him by natural issue, but tliose who imitate his character (Kom. iv, 16), for if he be " the father of the faithful," then the faithful are his seed by character, independent of nat- ural descent; and hence the Messiah is said to see his seed, thouj^h, in fact, Jesus left no children by descent, but by grace or conversion only (Isa. liii, 10 ). This is occasionally restricted to one chief or principal seed, one who by excellence is the seed, as the seed of the Avoman (Gen. iii, 15; Gal. iii, 16), the seed of Abraham, the seed of David — meaning the most excellent descendant of the woman, of Abraham, of Davi<l. Or understand by the "seed of the woman" the offspring of the female sex only, as verified in the supernatural conception of Jesus (^[att. i, 18, etc. ; Luke i, "26, etc.), and of which the birth (if Abraham's seed (Isaac) was a figure. See below.
Seed is likewise taken figuratively for the Word of God (Luke viii, 5; 1 Pet. i, 23), for a disposition becom- ing a divine origin (I John iii, 9), and for truly pious persons (Matt, xiii, 38). — Calmet.
SEED, The One (Gal. iii, 16). The logic of this passage has eluded the search of our best critics, and yet it is worth pursuing, even against hope. The ques- tion involved is one purely of grammar, and particular- ly of Hebrew grammar — namely, How may we deter- mine the number of JJ^T, when it is plural and when sin- gular? This word, when representing the seed of plants, forms a regular plural like other masculine nouns; but when used for posterity, it never changes its form : in this use it resembles our English word sheep. We must, then, have recourse to the construction, and this is found to be very peculiar. The adjective is always singular, like itself, altliough the subject be numerous as the stars (Ezra ix, 2; .J((b v, 25; xxi, 8; l*sa. xxxvii, 25; cxii, 2 ). With verbs it is construed as a collective noun, the verb varying according to the circumstances, with no marked peculiarity. In connection with pro- nouns, the construction is entirely different from both the preceding. A singular pronoun marks an indivitlual, an only one, or one out of many ; wiiile a plural pronoun represents all the descendants. This rule is followed in- variably by the Sept., which always puts the pronouns of (Tiripfia in the constrvctio ad sensiim, just as the apos- tle does in the text, Kai rfp awspi^iaTi crov ' "02 tort Xpiffrdc. Peter understood this construction, for we find him inferring a singular seed from Gen. xxii, 17, 18, when speaking to native .Jews in the city of Jerusalem before Paul's conversion (Acts iii, 26), as David had set the example a thousand years before (Psa. Ixxii, 17). Kead this in the Sept.