See Stackhouse, Hist, of the Bible ; Bryant, Observa- tions on the Plagues inflicted on the Egyptians (Lond. 1794); Eichhorn, De Egypti anno mirabili, in the Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gottingen. Recentior, iv, 45; Schwarz, De plagis Pharonis (Wittemb. 1724); Bons- dorf, De plagis jEgypt. (Abose, 1809-10) ; 1 lengstenberg, Egypt and (he Books of Moses; Millington, Signs and Wonders (Lond. 1874); British Quarterly Review, July, 1874, p. 153 sq.; and the various commentaries, ad loc.
Plaifere (or Playfere\ John, D.D., an English divine of some note, flourished near the close of the 16th and the opening of the 17th century. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was for some time fellow of his alma mater. About 1596 he was made Margaret professor of divinity in the same college. He died in 1608. He was an Arminian in theology, and his writings circulated extensively and had great re- nown. Thomas Baker, the antiquary, says that if Plai- fere's sermons had never been printed, his name would yet have been honored in history, so decidedly marked was his influence on his time. Among his works we mention Appello Evangelium for the True Doctrine of Divine Predestination, etc. (Lond. 1652, 12mo) ; repub- lished in Cambridge Tracts (1803, 8vo). See Catter- mole, Literature of the Ch. of England, i, 334; Church- man's Remembrancer, vol. i. (J. H. W.)
Plain. I. This term, either in the sing, or plur., does dutv in the A. V. for no less than seven distinct
Hebrew words, each of which had its own independent and individual meaning, and could not be — at least is not — interchanged with any other. We frequently find two, three, and even more equivalents for the same He- brew term ; and, besides, some of the words are mani- festly mistranslated, and some of them are proper names. See Topographical Terms.
1. blX, abel, like the Arabic abala, signifies moisture and the verdure produced by it, as in ameadow, to which last term it chiefly corresponds. Hence it came to be applied to a low green plain. It occurs frequently as a proper name in Scripture; chiefly, however, in compo- sition's Abel-beth-maachah (2 Kings xv, 29; 1 Kings xv, 20), Abel-meholah (Judg. vii. 22), Abel-maim (2 Chron. xvi. 4). AbeUshittim (Numb, xxxiii. 49); also alone, as in 2 Sam. xx, 14, 18. In 1 Sam. vi, 18 the A. V. reads " unto the great stone of Abel ;" but the He- brew is n?**!;!! bzH "I", "unto Abel the great." Sev- eral MSS. read "X, "stone" (the Sept. has XiStov), and this is probably the true reading (De Rossi, Var. Lect. ad loc). Judg. xi, 33 is the only passage in which it is rendered " plain," " and he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith . . . and unto the plain of the vineyards" (C^^D 53S "7 J" ; Sept. hoc 'E/JtA^-op/i/'yH, v. r. 'AfiiX a fmtXtovwv ; Abel quce est vineis consiid). There can scarcely be a doubt that this is a proper name, and it should be rendered Abel-keramim. Euse- bius and Jerome mention it as a village of the Ammon- ites still existing in their day. situated six miles from Philadelphia, in the midst of vineyards (Onomast. s. v. Abelavinearum). See Abel.
2. "5X, elan. This word is derived from the root blU, to be strong; and hence it is used in Scripture to signify a strong tree, and most probably the oak, which grows to a great size in central and southern Palestine (Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 42, 50, 51). In the A. A', it is rendered " plain" (Gen. xii, 6 ; xiii, 18, etc.), or "plains" (xviii, 1 ; Deut. xi, 30), but in one place the margin has "oak" (Judg. ix, 6). It is difficult to account tor this rendering. Probably it was adopted from the Vulgate, which translates convallis in four places, vallis iu two, and quercus in three. The Sept. has 6pvg, except in Judg. ix, 9, where it has fiaXavoc ; and ver. 37, 'UXiui- ftaiDvevifi. The word should always be rendered "oak." It was considered a sacred tree. Under " the oak of Moreh," at Mature. Abraham pitched his tent, and wor- shipped God (Stanley, <$'. and P. p. 508). See Oak.
3. H;'p2. bik'dh, is from the mot r~2. /<> cleave asunder, and signifies literally a cleft, or place formed by dividing mountains, then a valley between moun- tains. It is equivalent to the Arabic buk'ah. It is generally used in the Bible to denote a low widely ex- tended plain : as " the plain of Shinar" (Gen. xi. 2 : Sept. ■n-tdiov; campus): " (he valley of Jericho" (Deut. xxxiv, 3); "the valley of Megiddo" (2 Chron. xxxv, 22; Zech. xii. 11); "the valley of Lebanon" (Josh, xi, 17, called in Amos i. 5 "the plain of Aven"), which is now called el-Bukda ; "the plain of Ono" (Neh. vi. 2), which ap- pears to have been a portion of southern Sharon, where the town of ( too was situated. This word is rendered "plain" in the following passages : Gen. xi. 2: Neh. vi. 2; Isa. xl, 4; Ezek. iii. 22. 23: viii. 4: Amos i. ."> : elso> where it is translated " valley." It is generally rendered ntSiov in the Sept. and campus in the Vulgate. X;"~ -. bik'd, the Chaldee form of H2p3, found only in Dan. iii. Nebuchadnezzar set up "the golden image in the plain of Dura." See Valley.