JEPHUNNEH

one source, and has been worked over in the interests of later religious conceptions; that two totally distinct prac-tices have, therefore, got mixed up together need cause no surprise. The first of these practices was the sacrifice of a human being at times of special stress (the sacrifice of the firstborn belongs to a different category); the second is that known as the 'Weeping for Tammuz.' Among early peoples there were certain rites which represented the death and resurrection of vegetation, in connexion with which various myths arose. In their original form Jin which human sacrifice played a part) these rites were in-tended, and beUeved, to be the means of assisting Nature to bring forth the fruits of the earth. Among such rites was that known as ' the Weeping for Tammuz ' ( = Adonis) , cf. Ezk 8"; the rite was based on the myth that Tammuz, a beautiful youth, was killed by a boar; Tammuz was the personification of the principle of vegetation, and repre-sented the Summer, while the boar represented the Winter. This death of Tammuz was celebrated annually with bitter wailing, chiefly by women (Jg 11*^); often (though not always, for the rite differed in different localities) his resur-rection was celebrated the next day, thus ensuring by means of imitative magic the re-appearance of fresh vegetation in its time.

The 'bewailing ot virginity' {v.''), and the note, 'she had not known a man' (v."), are inserted to lay stress on the fact that if Jephthah's daughter had had a husband, or had been a mother, her father would have had no power over her; since, in the one case, her husband would have been her possessor, and in the other, she could have claimed protection from the father ot the child, whether the latter were alive or not. W. O. E. Oesterley.

JEPHUNNEH.— 1. The father of Caleb (Nu 13»). 2. A son of Jether an Asherite (1 Ch 7").

JERAH. — Mentioned in the genealogies of Gn lO^* and 1 Ch l^" as a son of Joktan. Probably, in analogy with other names in this connexion, Jerah is to be taken as the designation of an Arabian tribe. The Arabic geographers refer to places named Warakh^ Yur&kh, and Yarach, with any one of which it might be identified. On the other hand, in Hebrew the word signifies 'new moon '; it may therefore be the translation ot a totemic clan-name. In fact, Bochart pointed out that 'sons of the moon ' is a patronymic still found in Arabia.

W. M. Nesbit.

JEBAHMEEL ('May El have compassion!') 1. A non-Israelite clan in the extreme S. of Palestine, with which David cultivated friendly relations during his exile (1 S 27»» 30™). After Saul's death the JerahmeeUtes formed part of the little principality over which he reigned in Hebron. How indistinct the recollection of them was appears from the various forms assumed by their name in MSS of the LXX: Jesmega, Isramelei, Aermon, Israel, Jeramelei. Subsequently they were considered to have been a Judahite clan (1 Ch 2°- 2™. 25-«: here Jerahmeel is Caleb's elder brother; the list ot his descendants in vv.''-" is of later origin than vv.'- "■'" and brings them down to the Chronicler's day) . We ha ve no historical or other records connected with these names, save that MoUd (v.^s) is a town mentioned elsewhere (Jos 19^ Neh ll^"). 2. LXX and Old Lat. read 'Jerahmeel' at 1 S 1' as the name of Samuel's grandfather. In all probability the Jeroham of MT is an abbreviated form, Uke Jacob for Jacob-el, or the Yarkhamu found in a Babylonian list of Hammurabi's time. 3. One of the three men ordered by Jehoiakim to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch (Jer 36^) . AV follows Vulg. (filio Amelech), calling him 'son of Hammelech': RV, with LXX, 'the king's son.' He was a scion of the royal house, but not necessarily a child of Jehoiakim. 4. In a list of Levites (1 Ch 24™-'!) drawn up considerably later than that in 23™-, Jerah-meel's name is added as son of Kish .(MT 'sons': the text is in a confused state). There must at the time have been a division of Levites called after him, and not, as previously, after Kish. J. Taylor.

JERECHU (1 Es 5^ =Ezr 2" Neh 7» Jericho.

432

JEREMIAH

JERED (the same name as Jared in Gn 5"- "■ "• '», 1 Ch 12).— A Judahite (1 Ch 418).

JEREMAI, — A Jew of the family of Hashum who had married a foreign wife (Ezr lO" [1 Es 9" Jeremias]).

JEREMIAH.— 1. A warrior of the tribe of Gad, fifth in reputation (1 Ch 12i»). 2. The tenth in reputsi-tion (1 Ch 1218) of the same Gadite band. 3. A bow-man and sUnger of the tribe of Benjamin (1 Ch 12').

4. The head of a family in E. Manasseh (1 Ch 5").

5. A Jew of Libnah, whose daughter, Hamutal or Hamital, was one of the wives of Josiah, and mother of Jehoahaz (2 K 23'i) and Zedekiah (2 K 24", Jer 52').

6. The son of Habazziniah and father of Jaazaniah, the head of the Rechabites (Jer 35') in the time of the prophet Jeremiah. 7. A priest who returned with Zerubbabel (Neh 120. His name was given to one of the twenty-two courses of priests (Ezr 2*>-39, Neh 7"-'^ 12"). 8. A priest who sealed the covenant (Neh 10^) and took part in the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem (12"). 9. The prophet. See next article.

JEREMIAH. — 1. The times. — Jeremiah the prophet was born towards the close of Manasseh's long and evil reign (c. B.C. 696-641), the influence of which over-shadowed his life (Jer 15', 2 K 23™). He prophesied under Josiah and his sons from the year 626 to the fall of Jerusalem in B.C. 586 (l^'-), and tor some short time after this until he vanishes from sight amongst the fugitive Jews in Egypt (chs. 40-44).

Through Josiah's minority (see Josiah) the ethnici-zing regime of Manasseh continued; Jeremiah's earliest preaching (chs. 2-6), and the prophecies of his con-temporary Zephaniah (wh. see), reveal a medley of heathen worships in Jerusalem, gross oppression and profligacy, insolence and insensibility characterizing both court and people. Meanwhile an international crisis is approaching. The giant power of Asshur, which for a century had dominated Israel's world, is in rapid decline, and is threatened by the new Median State on its eastern border; Nahum (wh. see) had already celebrated Nineveh's downfall in his splendid verses. The Assyrian capital was saved for the time by the irruption of the Scythian nomads (Ezekiel's Gog and Magog), who were swarming southwards from the Oxus plains and over the Caucasus passes. These hordes of wild horsemen overran Western Asia for a generation, leaving a lasting horror behind them. Nineveh avoided capture by the Medes in 625 only at the expense of seeing her lands wasted and her de-pendencies stripped from her. The war-cloud of the Scythian invasion overhangs the sky of Zephaniah, and of Jeremiah at the outset of his ministry. The territory of Judah seems, after all, to have escaped the Scythian deluge, which swept to the borders of Egypt. The nomad cavalry would reach with difficulty the Judsan highlands; and if Josiah, coming of age about this time, showed a bold front against them and saved his country from their ravages, we can account for the prestige that he enjoyed and used to such good purpose. At the same date, or even earlier, the Assyrian over-lordship had been renounced; for we find Josiah exercising independent sovereignty. It was not as the vassal of Nineveh, but in the assertion of his hereditary rights and as guardian of the old territory of Israel, that he challenged Pharaoh-necho, who was attempting to seize the lost western provinces of Assyria, to the fatal encounter of Megiddo in the year 608 (2 K 22^ 23»-2«, 2 Ch 35™). The Pharaoh pointedly calls him 'thou king of Judah,' as if bidding him keep within his bounds (2 Ch 35»). Jeremiah praises Josiah, in contrast to his son, as an upright and prosperous king, good to the poor and commending his religion by his rule (Jer 22"-").

The great event of Josiah's reign was the reformation effected by him in its eighteenth year (b.c. 621), upon the discovery of 'the book of the law' in the Temple (2 K 228-23M; see Deuteronomy). So far as con-