TABRET

in Jg 8'" is to this mountain is doubtful. In later history Tabor appears chiefly as a fortress. In the 3rd cent. B.C., Antioohus the Great captured the city Atabyrium which was upon Tabor, and afterwards fortified it. Between b.c. 105 and 78 the place was agairi in Jewish hands, but in b.c. 63 Gabinius here defeated Alexander, son of Aristobulus ii., who was in revolt. A hundred and ten years later Josephus fortified the hiil against Vespasian, but after the Jewish soldiers had been defeated by the general Placidus, the place surrendered. During the Crusades it was tor long in the hands of the Christians, but tell to the Moslems after the battle of Hattin, and was fortified in 1212 by the successor of Saladin — a step which led to the in-glorious and ineffectual 5th Crusade.

The tradition that Tabor was the scene of the Trans-figuration goes back to the 3rd cent., but has little evidence in its favour. Although not directly recorded, the condition of the hill before and after would lead one to suppose that it was an inhabited site at the time of Christ, while the requirements of the Biblical narrative (Mk 8" Q^-"", Lk 9^^-^) suggest a site near Caesarea Philippi, such, for example, as an isolated spur of Hermon.

Mount Tabor to-day is one of the best-wooded spots in W. Palestine, groves of oaks and terebinths not only covering the hillsides, but extending also over a considerable area of hill and valley to the N.; game abounds in the coverts. The Franciscans and the Greek Church have each erected a monastery-hospice on the summit, and extensive excavations have been made, particularly by members of the former order. The foundations of a great wall of circumvallation — prob-ably that of Josephus (.BJ iv. i. 8) — have been followed, many ancient tombs have been cleared, and the remains of several churches of the 4th and of the 12th centuries have been unearthed. E. W. G. Mastekman.

TABRET (see art. Tabeh) is AV tr. of Wph in Gn 31",

1 S 105 i8«. Is 5'2 248 30S2, Jer 31«, Ezk 28". The same Heb. word is tr. 'timbrel' in Ex 15™, Jg 11",

2 S 6', 1 Ch 13», Job 21", Ps 81^ 1493 150«. It might have been well to drop both 'timbrel' and 'tabret,' neither of which conveys any clear sense to a modem ear, and adopt some such rendering as 'tambourine' or 'hand-drum'. The AV rendering of Job 17" 'afore-time I was as a tabret,' has arisen from a confusion of tBpheth. 'spitting' with Wph 'tambourine.' The words mean ' I am become one to be spit on in the face ' (RV 'an open abhorring').

TABRDHMON.— The father of Benhadad (1 K 15").

TACHES. — An old word of French origin used by AV to render the Heb. geraMm, which occurs only in P's description of the Tabernacle (Ex 26«- "• " 35" etc.). The Gr. rendering denotes the rings set in eyelets at the edge of a sail for the ropes to pass through. The Heb. word evidently signifies some form of hook or clasp (so RV) like the Roman fibula.

TACKLING in Is 33^ means simply a ship's ropes ; in Ac 27" it is used more generally of the whole gearing (RVm 'furniture').

TADUOR (Palmyra). — In 2 Ch 8' we read that Solomon built 'Tadmor in the [Syrian] desert.' It has long been recognized that Tadmor is here a mistake for 'Tamar in the [Judaean] desert' of the corresponding passage in 1 Kings (9"). The Chronicler, or one of his predecessors, no doubt thought it necessary to emend in this fashion a name that was scarcely known to him. (That it is really the city of Tadmor so famous in after times that is meant, is confirmed by the equally uuhis-torical details given in 2 Ch 8'- * regarding the Syrian cities of Hamath and Zobah.) Hence arose the necessity for the Jewish schools to change the Tamar of 1 K 9'* in turn into Tadmor [the Qerg in that passage], so as to agree with the text of the Chronicler. The LXX I

TAPHANHES

translator of 1 K 9'8 appears to have already had this correction before him. Nevertheless it is quite certain that Tamar is the original reading. But the correction supplies a very important evidence that at the time when Chronicles was composed (c. b.c. 200), Tadmor was already a place of note, around the founding of which a fabulous splendour had gathered, so that it appeared fitting to attribute it to Solomon. This fiction maintained itself, and received further embellishments. The pre-Islamic poet Nabigha (v. 22 fl., ed. Ahlwardt, c. A.D. 600) relates that, by Divine command, the demons built Solomon's Tadmor by forced labour. This piece of information he may have picked up locally; what he had in view would be, of course, the remains, which must have been still very majestic, of the city whose climax of splendour was reached in the 2nd and 3rd cent. a.d.

Tadmor, of whose origin and earlier history we know nothing, lay upon a great natural road through the desert, not tar from the Euphrates, and not very tar from Damascus. It was thus between Syria, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia proper. Since water, although not in great abundance, was also found on the spot, Tadmor supplied a peaceable and intelligent population with all the conditions necessary tor a metropolis of the caravan trade. Such we find in the case of Palmyra, whose identity with Tadmor was all along maintained, and has recently been assured by numerous inscriptions. The first really historical mention ot the place (b.c. 37 or 36) tells how the wealth ot this centre of trade incited M. Antony to a pillaging campaign (Appian, Bell. Civ. v. 9).

The endings of the two names Tadmor and Palmyra are the same, but not the first syllable. It is not clear why the Westerns made such an alteration in the form. 'The name Palmyra can hardly have anything to do with palms. It would, indeed, be sometliing very remarlcable if m this Eastern district the Lat. palma was used at so early a date in the formation of names. The Oriental form Tadmor is to be kept quite apart from tdmdr, 'palm.' Finally, it is unlikely that the palm was ever extensively cultivated on the spot.

Neither in the OT nor in the NT is there any other mention of Tadmor (Palmyra), and Josephus names it only when he reproduces the alDove passage of Chronicles (Arii. VIII. vi. 1). The place exercised, indeed, no con-siderable influence on the history either of ancient Israel or of early Christianity. There is therefore no occasion to go further into the history, once so glorious and finally so tragic, ot the great city, or to deal with the fortunes of the later somewhat inconsiderable place, which now, in spite ot its imposing ruins, is desolate in the extreme, but which still bears the ancient name Tadmor (Tedmur, Tudmur). Th. Noldeke.

TAHAH.— An Ephraimite clan (Nu 26" <■"), 1 Ch 7»); gentilic name Tahanites in Nu 26's ws).

TAHASH.— A son ot Nahor (Gn 22^).

TAHATH.— 1. A Kohathite Levite (1 Ch 6"). 2. 3. Two (unless the name has been accidentally repeated) Ephraimite families (1 Ch V). 4. An unidentified 'station' of the Israelites (Nu 332«'-).

TAHOHEMONITE (AV Tachmonite) .-See Hachmoni.

TAHFANHES (Jer 2" 43™- 44' 46", Ezk 30" (Tehaphnehea), in Jth 1= AVTaphnes). — An Egyptian city, the same as the Greek Daphnse, now Tell Defne. The Egyptian name is unknown. It lay on the Pelusiac branch ot the Nile, which is now silted up, and the whole region converted into a waste. Petrie's ex-cavations showed that Daphnse was founded by Psam-metichus i. on the 26th Dyn. (b.c. 664-610). Accordmg to Herodotus, it was the frontier fortress ot Egypt on the Asiatic side, and was garrisoned by Greeks. In its ruins was found an abundance ot Greek pottery, iron armour, and arrowheads of bronze and iron, while numerous small weights bore testimony to the trade that passed through it. The garrison was kept up by the Persians in the 5th cent., and the town existed

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