Nazarite vow was of home origin in Mosaism; an argument whose force we cannot discern, for a foreign practice, once introduced, must of necessity be conformed to its new abode. he was then to shave his head and offer a sinoffering and a burnt-offering; thus making an atonement for himself, for that he sinned by the dead.' A lamb also, of the first year, was to It is not least among the merits of Judaism that be offered as a trespass-offering. The days too in general it is eminently of a practical character. that had gone before his defilement were to be Though admitting a multitude of observances, lost, not reckoned in the number of those during some of which, being of a very minute kind, and which his vow was to last. On the termination relating to every-day life, must have been trouble- of the period of the vow the Nazarite himself was some, if not vexatious, yet the ordinary current brought unto the door of the tabernacle of the of existence was allowed to run on unimpeded; congregation, there to offer a burnt-offering, a sinenergy was not directed from its proper channel; offering, a peace-offering, and a meat and a drinkand life was spent in the active discharge of offering. The Nazarite also shaved his head at those offices which human wants require, and by the door of the tabernacle, and put the hair which human happiness may be best advanced. grown during the time of separation into the fire There was no Indian self-renunciation; there was which was under the sacrifice of the peace-offerno monkish isolation; yet the vow of the Nazarite ings. And the priest shall take the sodden shows that personal privations were not unknown shoulder of the ram and one unleavened cake out in the Mosaic polity. This vow we regard as an of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and instance and an exemplification of that asceti- shall put them in the hands of the Nazarite after cism which, wherever human nature is left free the hair of his separation is shaven; and the priest to develope itself, will always manifest its ten- shall wave them for a wave-offering.' "After dencies and put forth its effects. No age, no that the Nazarite may drink wine.' nation, no religion has been without asceticism. There are not wanting individual instances Self-mortification is, with some minds, as natural which serve to illustrate this vow, and to show that as self-enjoyment with others. The proneness to the law in the case went into operation. Hannah, ascetic practices is a sort of disorder of tempera- Samson's mother, became a Nazarite that she ment. It is in part a question of original con- might have a son. Samson himself was a Nazastitution. As some individuals are inclined to rite from the time of his birth (Judg. xiii.). melancholy, to brood over their own states of In his history is found a fact which seems to mind, so they tend to become morbid in their present the reason why cutting the hair was forfeelings, intensely self-dissatisfied, over-thought-bidden to the Nazarite. The hair was considered ful, full of personal solicitudes; then gloomy; then still more dissatisfied with themselves, till at length they are led to think that nothing but severe mortifications and self-inflicted penalties can atone for their guilt, and placate a justly | offended God. This general tendency of a certain physical temperament may be checked or encouraged by religious opinions or social institutions, as well as by the peculiar hue which the fortune of an age or a country may bear. The disease, however, is eminently contagious; and, if, owing to unknown circumstances, there was in the days of Moses a tendency, whether borrowed from Egypt or merely strengthened by Egyptian practices, which threatened, in its excess, to become in any degree epidemic, it was wise and patriotic in that lawgiver to take the subject into his own remedial hands, and to restrain and limit to individuals that which might otherwise infect large classes, if not reach and so weaken the national mind. The law of the Nazarite, which may be found in Num. vi., is, in effect, as follows:-male and female might assume the vow; on doing so a person was understood to separate himself unto the Lord; this separation consisted in abstinence from wine and all intoxicating liquors, and from everything made therefrom: From vinegar o wine, and vinegar of strong drink; neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes or dried; he was to eat nothing of the vine-tree, from the kernels even to the husks.' Nor was a razor to come upon his head all the time of his vow; he was to be holy, and let the locks of the hair of his head grow.' With special care was he to avoid touching any dead body whatever. Being holy unto the Lord, he was not to make himself unclean by touching the corpse even of a relative. Should he happen to do so, VOL. II. the source of strength; it is, in fact, often connected with unusual strength of body, for the male has it in greater abundance than the female. Delilah urged Samson to tell her where his strength lay. After a time, 'He told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head, for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man' (Judg. xvi. 15 sq.). The secret was revealed; Samson was shorn, and accordingly lost his strength and his life. This conception led to the prohibition in question; for as the Nazarite was separated to the Lord, so was it proper that he should be in full vigour of body (secured by the presence of his hair) and of mind (secured by abstinence from strong drink). As animals offered in sacrifice were to be faultless and spotless, so a man or a woman set apart to God was to be in full possession of their faculties. From the language employed by Samson, as well as from the tenor of the law in this case, the retention of the hair seems to have been one essential feature in the vow. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that any case should have been considered as the Nazaritic vow in which the shaving of the head is put forth as the chief particular. St. Paul is supposed to have been under this vow, when (Acts xviii. 18) he is said to have 'shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow' (see also Acts xxi. 24). The head was not shaven till the vow was performed, when a person had not a vow. Carpzov, Appar. p. 151 sq. p. 799 sq.; Reland, Antiq. Sacr. ii. 10; Meinhard, De Nasiraeis, Jen., 1676; Zorn, in Miscell. Lips. Nov. iv., 426 sq.; Spencer, De Leg. Heb. Rit., iii. 6; 2 D Dongtaei Analect., i. 37; Lucian, De Dea. Syr., c. 60; Mishua, Nasir.-J. R. B. NAZARETH (NaCapéo, Na(apér), a town in Galilee, in which the parents of Jesus were resident, and where in consequence he lived till the commencement of his ministry. It derives all its historical importance from this circumstance, for it is not even named in the Old Testament or by Josephus: which suffices to show that it could not have been a place of any consideration, and was probably no more than a village. Lightfoot indeed starts the question whether the name may not be recognised in that of the tower of Nozarim in 2 Kings xvii. 9 (Hor. Hebr. on Luke i: 26); but there is here nothing to go upon but the faint analogy of name. The expression of Nathanael, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?' (John i. 46) might imply a certain degree | of evil notoriety in the place. There appears no reason for this, however; and as the speaker was himself of Galilee, the expression could not have been intended to apply to it merely as a Galilean town; it seems therefore likely that Nathanael's meaning was, 'Is it possible that so great a good should come from so obscure a place as Nazareth, which is never mentioned by the prophets.' Nazareth is situated about six miles W.N.W. from Mount Tabor, on the western side of a narrow oblong basin, or depressed valley, about a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad. The buildings stand on the lower part of the slope of the western hill, which rises steep and high above them. It is now a small, but more than usually well-built place, containing about three thousand inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are Christians. The flat-roofed houses are built of stone, and are mostly two stories high. The environs are planted with luxuriantly-growing fig-trees, olive-trees, and vines, and the crops of corn are scarcely equalled throughout the length and breadth of Canaan. All the spots which could be supposed to be in any way connected with the history of Christ are, of course, pointed out by the monks and local guides, but on authority too precarious to deserve any credit, and with circumstances too puerile for reverence. It is enough to know that the Lord dwelt here; that for thirty years he trod this spot of earth, and that his eyes were familiar with the objects spread around. In the south-west part of the town is a small Maronite church, under a precipice of the hill, which here breaks off in a perpendicular wall forty or fifty feet in height. Dr. Robinson noticed several such precipices in the western hill around the village, and with very good reason concludes that one of these, probably the one just indicated, may well have 6 been the spot whither the Jews led Jesus, unto the brow of the hill whereon the city was built, that they might cast him down headlong' (Luke iv. 28-30); and not the precipice, two miles from the village, overlooking the plain of Esdraelon, which monkish tradition indicates to the traveller as the Mount of Precipitation.' He denounces this as the most clumsy of all the local legends of the Holy Land and indeed its intrinsic unsuitableness is so manifest, that the present monks of Nazareth can only surmount the difficulty by alleging that the ancient Nazareth was nearer than the modern to this mountain, forgetting that this hypothesis destroys the identity and credit of the holy places which they show in the present town. It appears to have been originally selected as a striking object to travellers approaching from the plain of Esdraelon (Robinson's Researches, iii. 183-200; comp. Burckhardt, Syria, p. 337; Richter, Wallfahrten, p. 37; Schubert's Morgen land, iii. 168; Clarke's Travels, iv. vol. i. p. 537; Narrative of Scottish Deputation, pp. 305, 306). NEAPOLIS (NEάTOxis), a maritime city of Macedonia, near the borders of Thrace, now called Napoli. Paul landed here on his first journey into Europe (Acts xvi. 11). نبق by the Arabs as 'a mingled people' (Jer. xxv. 24); and as we find in the days both of Jacob (Gen. xxxvii. 27, 28, 36) and Gideon (Judg. viii. 22, 24) the name of 'Ishmaelites' used interchangeably for that of 'Midianites' (the descendants of another son of Abraham); so it cannot be doubted that the Natook their common name from the progenitor of bathæans included a variety of Arab races who the largest or most influential tribe, Nebaioth, the first-born of Ishmael. While the greater number of their countrymen followed the occupation of shepherds, others applied themselves to commerce, which we find them prosecuting so early as the days of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 27, 36). They appear to have originated the transit trade carried on by caravans across the desert towards Palestine and Egypt, and probably their chief motive in at length locating themselves in Idumæa was that they might command the great commercial route from the Red Sea northward through the continuous valley of El-Araba and El-Ghor. NEBAIOTH, or NEBAJOTH (?), called or , the first-born son of Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 13; 1 Chron. i. 29), and the prince or sheikh (, rendered by Jerome púλapxos) of one of the twelve Ishmaelitish tribes, which, as well as the territory they occupied, continued to bear his name in after times (Gen. xxv. 16; comp. ch. xvii. 20). One of Esau's wives, Mahalath, otherwise called Bashemath, is expressly designated as the sister of Nebaioth' (Gen. xxviii. 9; xxxvi. 3); and by a singular coincidence the land of Esau, or Edom, was ultimately possessed by the posterity of Nebaioth. In common with the other Ishmaelites, they first The territory occupied by the Nabathæans is settled in the wilderness 'before' (i. e. to the called by Greek writers Naßarny (by Epiphaeast of) their brethren, the other descendants of nius Naßaréa and Naßarris), and by Latin writers Abraham; by which we are probably to under- Nabathaa or Nabathena. In its widest sense stand the great desert lying to the east and south- this included the whole of Northern Arabia from east of Palestine (Gen. xxv. 18; xxi. 21; xvi. the Euphrates to the Elanitic Gulf of the Red 12; and see the article ARABIA). In Gen. xxv. Sea; but more strictly taken it denoted (at least 16, the English Version speaks of the Ishmaelitishin later times) only a portion of the southern part 'towns and castles,' but the former word in the of that vast region (Josephus, Antiq. i. 12. 4; original signifies a moveable village of tents' St. Jerome, Quæst. on Isa. xxv. 13: Ammianus (the horde of the Tartars), and the latter seems to Marcellinus, xiv. 8). We first hear of the Nadenote pens or folds for cattle and sheep. Both bathæans in history in the reign of Antigonus, expressions thus point to the nomadic life of shep-who succeeded Alexander the Great in Babylon, herds, which the tribe of Nebaioth seem to have followed for ages afterwards, inasmuch as in the days of Isaiah the 'rams of Nebaioth' are mentioned (Isa. lx. 7) as among the most precious gifts which the Bedawees, or 'Men of the Desert' would consecrate to the service of Jehovah. Arab writers mention the tribe of Nabat as successful cultivators in Babylonian Irak; but the name is written with a tha. (D'Herbelot, Bib. Orient. under Nabat;' Pocock's Spec. Hist. Arab. pp. 46, 268). and died in the year B.c. 301. He sent two expeditions against them; the first under Athenæus, who found most of the men absent at a certain emporium or mart, having left their families, says Diodorus Siculus (xix. 95-98) èní TIVOS Пéтpas, i. e. upon a certain rock, or, perhaps, rather in a certain place called Petra,' thus pointing to their famous metropolis, the Selah or stronghold by surprise, he found in it a large store Joktheel of the Hebrews [PETRA]. Taking this of frankincense and myrrh, and five hundred talents of silver, all which he seized and carThe successful invasion of Western Asia, first ried off. But the Nabathæans having quickly by the Assyrians and afterwards by the Chal- rallied their forces pursued him and destroyed a dæans, could not but affect the condition of the great part of his army. Antigonus, after certain tribes in Northern Arabia, though we possess no deceitful negociations, sent against them another record of the special results. The prophet Isaiah, expedition under his son Demetrius; but having after his obscure oracle regarding Dumah (ch. xxi. had intelligence of his approach, they drove their 11, 12), introduces a 'judgment upon Arabia,' flocks into the surrounding deserts and deposited i. e. Desert Arabia, which some suppose to have their wealth in Petra, to which, says the historian, been fulfilled by Sennacherib, while others think there was but a single approach, and that xeipoit refers to the later events that are foretold by ToinTos,' i. e. made by hand-an expression strikJeremiah (ch. xlix. 28-33) as befalling Kedaringly descriptive of the passage of El Syk at Wady and the kingdoms of Hazor' in consequence of the Musa. Demetrius, thus baffled, had to retire with ravages of Nebuchadnezzar. Be this as it may, his troops. It appears from these accounts that we know that when the latter carried the Jews the Nabathæans were as yet essentially a pastoral captive to Babylon, the Edomites made them- people, though they were likewise engaged in selves masters of a great part of the south of Pales- commerce, which they afterwards prosecuted to a tine [IDUMEA], while either then or at a later great extent, and thereby acquired great riches period they themselves were supplanted in the and renown. It was in this way that they grasouthern part of their own territory by a people dually became more fixed in their habits; and called by Greek writers Naßaraiol, and by the living in towns and villages they were at length Romans Nabatai-a name clearly traceable to the united under a regular monarchical government, Nebaioth of the Hebrews. It were an error, how- constituting the kingdom of Arabia, or ever, to suppose that they consisted only of his strictly, Arabia Petræa, the name being derived descendants to the exclusion of other Ishmaelites. not, as some suppose, from the rocky nature of the The Arabs are frequently described in Scripture country, but from the chief city, Petra. Accord more |