STRANGLING

than political significance. He is expected to keep tlie Sabbath and to observe the Day of Atonement, as well as the three great feasts (Lv 16^'). He is to eat un-leavened bread during Passover week {Ex 12"; Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are now blended), and, if circumcised (not otherwise), to keep the full Passover Itself. But the ffSr is not even yet the full equal of the Israelite, for he is not compelled to be cir-cumcised, and no one can belong to the congregation who has not submitted to that rite (Ex 12"''-, Nu 9") ; he has not yet received the right of Intermarriage (Gn 34"), and is prohibited from keeping Jewish slaves (Lv 25"ff-).

The closing of the ranks of Judaism, helped by the Exile, by the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, by the Samaritan schism, and consummated by the Maccabsan wars, led to the complete absorption of the 'sojourner.' The word proaelytos (representing the Heb. ffSr), common in classical Greek for one who has come to a place (Lat. advena), acquired in Hellenistic Greek the meaning which meets us often in the NT (Mt 23", Ac 2' etc.). See Phoselyte.

The indiscriminate use of ' stranger ' with the meaning of 'sojourner,' and of 'alien' and 'foreigner' is very confusing. ' Foreigner' is the proper rendering of Heb. nokri. The Heb. tBshSb Qit. 'dweller') is a post-exilic substitute for ger ('sojourner') in the original non-re-ligeous sense of the latter. For the sake of distinction It might be uniformly rendered 'settler' (EV 'so-journer,' 'stranger,' 'foreigner'). See, for the relations of Israel to foreigners proper, art. Nations.

T. WiTTON Davies.

STRANGLING. — This is suggested as a mode of death. Job 7". The cognate verb describes the manner of Ahithophel's self-inflicted death (2 S l?^", EV 'hanged himself; cf. Mt 27* of Judas). The idea conveyed is death by suffocation, not necessarily produced by suspension. Elsewhere, where hanging is mentioned in EV as a mode of punishment, some form of impale-ment is intended (see Ckimes and Punishments, § 10).

In the pastoral letter sent down by the Council of Jerusalem to the early converts from heathenism, these are instructed to abstain inter alia ' from blood and from things strangled' (Ac IS^', cf. v.2» 212=). Both belong to the category of Jewish food taboo (Food, § 10). The former refers to the prohibition against eating meat which had not been thoroughly drained of the blood, the second to the similar taboo affecting the flesh of animals not slaughtered according to the very minute Rabbinical rules then in force. Thus in the Talmudic treatise ChuUin, specially devoted to this subject, it is laid down (i. 2) that ' any one may slaughter . . . with any instrument except a harvest-sickle, a saw, etc., because these strangle,' in other words, they do not make the clean incision required for proper slaughter. ' What is strangled ' (Ac 15^° RV) or strangled meat is thus seen to be a current technical term of the Jewish sMkhltd or ritual of slaughter. In modern phrase the Gentile converts were to eat only kSsher meat.

A. R. 8. Kennedy.

STRAW, STUBBLE.— In Heb. the former is teben, the latter qash, and to Western ideas the one is as much 'straw' as the other. The distinction between the two is as follows: teben, the modern tibn, is the mixture of chopped straw and chaff, produced by the action of the threshing-drag and winnowed out by the fan (.iGEicnLTTiEE, § 3), as distinguished from the grains of wheat (so Jer 23^' where 'straw' RV, and 'chaff' AV are both inadequate). It is mentioned as the food of horses, asses, and camels. In reaping, as is still the custom, the stalks were cut knee-high or over; the length of stalk left standing is qash. Accordingly, when the Hebrews in Egypt 'gathered stubble for straw' (Ex 5'^), what they did was to pull up the stalks of wheat left standing in the fields and cut them up into short pieces suitable for brick-making, instead of

SUCCOTH

being allowed to procure the tibn ready to their hand from the local threshing-floors. Since the corn-stalks were usually burned as manure, 'stubble' is frequently found in metaphors suggested by this practice (Is S" 47" etc.). In other passages containing refer-ence explicit or implied to 'driven stubble' (41'), the smaller fragments of chopped straw which the wind blew away with the chaff from the threshing-floor may be intended. A. R. S. Kennedy.

STREET.— See City.

STRENGTH OF ISRAEL.— The EV tr. of the Divine title nSisocA Yisra'U in 1 S IS". Probably a more accurate rendering would be 'Glory of Israel.'

STRIPES.— See Crimes, etc. ('Beating'), 9.

STRONG DRINK. — See Wine and Strong Drink.

STRONGHOLD. — See City, Fortification and Siegecraft.

STUBBLE.— See S'rRAW.

STUFF.- In Lk IT^i and elsewhere in AV 'stuff' means 'furniture'; cf. Udall's tr. of Erasmus' Para-phrase, i. 7, ' All that ever they had about them of stufEe or furniture.'

STUMBLING-BLOCK (Gr. skandalon; AV ' offence,'

'occasion to fall,' 'stumbling-block'; RV 'stumbling- block,' 'thing that causes stumbling,' 'occasion of stumbling'), — Properly the spring of a trap (cf. Ro 11'); hence something that ensnares or trips up. The verb is skandalizein; AV 'offend,' RV 'cause to stumble.'

David Smith.

SUA (1 Es 5") =Ezr 2" Siaha, Neh 7" Sia.

SUAH.— An Asherite (1 Ch 7^).

SUBAI (1 Es 6«») -Ezr 2« Shamlai, Neh 7" Salmai.

SUB AS. — A family of 'Solomon's servantse (1 Es 5")-

SUBURB. — This word is used in AV in two quite dis-tinct senses. (1) In 2 K 23" a certain chamber, really within the Temple precincts, is said to have been ' in the suburbs' (Heb. parvar, RV 'precincts'). Practically the same original is retained as a proper name — Parbar, 1 Ch 26" (RVm 'the Precinct'), where the reference is probably to the same spot as in the former passage. Modern scholars find in this mysterious parbar or par-var a designation of the western colonnade (or part thereof) of the Temple (see Parbar).

(2) In all other instances 'suburbs' occurs only in connexion with the so-called Levitical cities, as the rendering — derived from the Vulg. suburbana (fields, etc., close to a city) — of a Heb. word meaning 'pasture- grounds.' Each of the 48 cities, according to Nu 35™-, is to be provided with a square tract of land measuring 2000 cubits — roughly 1000 yards — each way, which is to serve the Levites as a common pasture ground 'for their cattle and for their substance and for all their beasts' (v.' RV, cf. the lists in Jos 21«-« 1 Ch 6m-«>). A. R. S. Kennedy.

SUCATHITES.— See Soco, 1.

SUCCOTH.— A place first mentioned in Gn 33", where it is said to have been so called because Jacob, on his return from Haran to Canaan, halting at it after his wrestling with the angel at Penuel, built there ' booths' (Heb. succSth) for his cattle. Gideon also, after crossing the Jordan in his pursuit of the Midianites, passed Succoth, and afterwards 'went up' to Penuel (Jg g*- »). The name has not been preserved; and the site is thus matter of conjecture. From the passages quoted and other notices it is clear that it was E. of the Jordan; and it may further be inferred that, while Penuel was close to the Jabbok (Gn 32"- soi-), on higher ground than Succoth, and to the E. or S.E. (Jg 8=- », cf. v."), Succoth was on the route between Penuel and Shechem, which would pass most naturally over the ford ed-Damiyeh (a little S. of the point at which the Jabbok enters the Jordan), in the territory of Gad, in a 'vale'

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