ARGOB

ARK

by Aretas' ethnarch. A temporary occupancy may well have taken place in Aretas' war against Herod Antipas or afterwards; and it would be unsafe to build any chronological theory on this passage. The reign of Aretas iv. lasted from b.c. 9 to a.d. 40-, inscriptions (at el-Hejra) and coins are dated in his 48th year (Cooke, I.e.). A. J. Maclean.

ARGOB. — 1. Argob and Arieh were guards of Peka-hiah (2 K 15^), who fell by the hands of Pekah along with their master. 2, A district in the kingdom of Og, abounding in strong cities and unwalled towns. It was subdued by ' Jair son of Manasseh,' and became the possession of his tribe (Dt 3»- '\ 1 K 4" etc.). It is called 'the Argob' (Dt 3"). This, together with the fact that chebel, 'measured area,' always precedes the name, seems to indicate a definitely marked district. This would apply admirably to the great lava field of el-Leja, N.W. of Jebel Hauran. Within this forbidding tract the present writer collected the names of 71 ruined sites. Had Gesenius rightly translated 'a heap of stones,' the identification would be almost certain. But the name seems to mean 'arable land' (re!7c6='clod,' Job 21'^ 38'*). Argob must therefore be sought else-where. The W. slopes of the mountain (now Jebel ed-Druze) would always form a clearly defined district. They abound in ruins of antiquity; while the rich soil, now turned to good account by the Druzes, would amply justify the name of Argob. W. Ewing.

ABIDAI (Est 9'). — The ninth of Haman's sons, put to death by the Jews.

ARIDATHA (Est 9«). — The sixth son of Haman, put to death by the Jews.

ARIEH ('the lion'). — Mentioned with Argob in a very obscure passage (2 K 15^).

ARIEL. — 1. One of Ezra's chief men (Ezr 8i«). 2. The name of a Moabite (according to EV of 2 S 23", 1 Ch 11^2) whose two sons were slain by Benaiah. 3. A name of uncertain meaning, perhaps = ' God's altar- hearth,' given to Jerusalem by Isaiah (29'«). It has recently been proposed to read XJri^el ('city of God ') as a paronomasia or play of words on Uru-saiim, the earliest recorded form of the name 'Jerusalem.'

A. R. S. Kennedy.

ARIMATHaiA (Mt 27", Mk 15«, Lk 23", Jn 19=8). — A place known only in connexion with Joseph. It was probably near Lydda.

ARIOCH .—1 . The king of EUasar (Gn 14>) . It has been suggested by Schrader that Arioch is the transcription of Eri-a-ku, the Sumerian writing of the name Rim- Sin of the king of Larsa, son of Kudur-Mabug, an Ela-mite, who ruled Southern Babylonia till conquered by Hammurabi. See Chedorlaomer. 2. The captain of the king's guard in the time of Nebuchadrezzar (Dn 2"). 3. King of the Elym^ans (Jth !«).

C. H. W. Johns.

ARISAI (Est 9'). — The eighth son of Haman, put to death by the Jews.

ARISTARCHUS.— The name of one of St. Paul's companions in travel. He was ' a Macedonian of Thes-salonica' (Ac IQ^' 27'), and a convert from Judaism (Col 41"'). From Troas, Aristarchus accompanied St. Paul on his departure for Jerusalem at the close of the third missionary journey (Ac 20*); he also embarked with the Apostle on his voyage to Rome (27^). In Col 41" he is called St. Paul's 'fellow-prisoner' (cf. Philem 23, where Epaphras, not Aristarchus, is styled 'my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus'). The expression probably refers not to a spiritual captivity, but either to a short imprisonment arising out of the turmoil described in Ac 19^', or to a voluntary sharing of the Apostle's captivity by Aristarchus and Epaphras.

J. G. Tabker.

ARISTOBTJLTJS.— 1. The name of a son and of a grandson of Herod the Great. The grandson lived as

a private individual at Rome, and was a friend of the Emperor Claudius; those greeted by St. Paul in Ro 16"i were probably some of his slaves. It he was then dead, they might have become members of the Imperial house-hold, but would still retain Aristobulus' name. 2. The teacher of Ptolemy (2 Mac 1'"). A. J. Maclean.

ARIUS (1 Mac 12'- ''«).— A king of Sparta, grandson and successor of Cleomenes 11. His reign lasted from B.C. 309 to B.C. 265, and he was contemporary with the high priest Onias i., the successor of Jaddua. Friendly letters were interchanged between Arius and Onlas (probably about b.c. 300); and Jonathan Maccabteus refers to these communications in a letter which he sent by his ambassadors to Sparta (c. b.c. 144), 1 Mac 12"'- "«• AV Darius in v.' is due to corrupt text.

ARK. — This word, from Lat. area, 'a chest,' is the rendering of two Hebrew words, of which one {febhah, probably a loan-word) is applied both to the basket of bulrushes in which the infant Moses was exposed, and to the ark built by Noah (see DELnoE). The other ('orSn, the native word for box or chest, 2 K 12""), is used tor a mummy-case or coffin (Gn 50^), and in particular for the sacred ark of the Hebrews.

Ark ot the Covenant. — 1. Names of the ark. — Apart from the simple designation 'the ark' found in all periods of Heb. literature, the names of the ark, more than twenty in number, fall into three groups, which are characteristic (a) of the oldest literary sources, viz. Samuel and the prophetical narratives of the Hexateuch ; (6) of Deuteronomy and the writers influenced by Dt. ; and (c) of the Priests' Code and subsequent writings. In (o) we find chiefly ' the ark of J", ' doubtless the oldest name of all, and 'the ark of God'; in (6) the char-acteristic title is 'the ark of the covenant' — alone or with the additions 'of J",' 'of God,' etc. — a contraction for 'the ark or chest containing the tables of the covenant' (Dt g""), and therefore practically 'the ark of the Decalogue ' ; in (c) the same conception of the ark prevails (see below), but as the Decalogue is by P termed 'the testimony,' the ark becomes 'the ark of the testi-mony.' All other designations are expansions of one or other of the above.

2. History of the ark. — The oldest Pentateuch sources (J, E) are now silent as to the origin of the ark, but since the author of Dt lO'-^ had one or both of these before him, it may be assumed that its construction was there also assigned to Moses in obedience to a Divine command . It certainly played an important part in the wanderings (Nu lO'sff. 14"), and in the conquest of Canaan (Jos 3"^-6"), and finally found a resting-place in the temple of Shiloh under the care of a priestly family claiming descent from Moses (1 S 3=). After its capture by the Philistines and subsequent restoration, it remained at Kiriath-jearim (1 S 4i-7'). until removed by David, first to the house of Obed-edom, and thereafter to a specially erected tent in his new capital (2 S e'""). Its final home was the inner sanctuary of the Temple of Solomon (1 K 8'"). Strangely enough, there is no further mention of the ark in the historical books. Whether it was among 'the treasures of the house of the Lord' carried off by Shishak (c. B.C. 930), or whether it was still in its place in the days of Jeremiah (3'") and was ultimately destroyed by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar (587 B.C.), it is impossible to say. There was no ark in the Temples of Zerubbabel and Herod.

3. The significance of the ark. — In attempting a solution of this difficult problem, we must, as in the foregoing section, leave out of account the late theoretical conception of the ark to be found in the Priests' Code (see Tabernacle), and confine our attention to the oldest sources. In these the ark — a simple chest of acacia wood, according to Dt 10' — is associated chiefly with the operations of war, in which it is the repre-sentative of J", the God of the armies of Israel. Its

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