WEAPONS

tor a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom ol God. He pictures a possessor of increasing wealth hearing God say, ' Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee' (Lk 122") ; He follows beyond the grave the histories of a rich man and a beggar, placing the rich man in a 'place of torment' and the poor man in Abraham's bosom (Lk 16'"). But there is the other side; for we find that He sympathized deeply with those enduring poverty, assuring them of their Father's care (Mt 6»2), preaching especially to them the gospel (Mt 11'), and pronouncing upon them in their sorrows a special benediction (Lk e^"), He showed that He desired that all should have a sufficiency, by bidding all, rich and poor alike, pray for 'daily bread.' If He taught that riches were indee.d an obstacle to entrance Into the Kingdom of God, He also taught that it was the 'few' (whether rich or poor) that succeeded in entering it (Mt 7"). If He told one young man to sell all that he had, clearly He did not intend this counsel to be applicable to all, for He assured of 'salvation' Zacchseus, who gave but the half of his goods to the poor (Lk 19»- '). If the builder of larger barns is termed the 'foolish one,' his folly is shown not to have been mere acquisition of wealth, but that acquisition apart from riches 'toward God' (Lk 12*') ; and if Dives is In Hades, it is evident that he is not there merely because of his riches, for Lazarus lies in the bosom of Abraham, the typical rich Jew. Further, in the parables of the Pounds and the Talents (Lk 19'2, Mt 25") He teaches, under the symbolism of money, that men are not owners but stewards of all they possess; while in the parable of the Unjust Steward He points out one of the true uses of wealth — namely, to relieve the poor, and so to insure a welcome from them when the eternal tabernacles are entered (Lk 16').

From the foregoing we may conclude that, while our Lord realized that poverty brought sorrow, He also realized that wealth contained an intense peril to spiritual life. He came to raise the world from the material to the spiritual; and wealth, as the very token of the material and temporal, was blinding men to the spiritual and eternal. He therefore urged those to whom it was a special hindrance, to resign it alto-gether; and charged all to regard it as something for the use of which they would be held accountable.

4. In the Apostolic Church, in its earliest days, we find her members having 'all things common,' and the richer selling their possessions to supply the wants of their poorer brethren (Ac 2"- « 4m-"). But this active enthusiasm does not necessarily show that the Church thought the personal possession of wealth, in itself, unlawful or undesirable; for the case of Ananias clearly indicates that the right to the possession of private property was not questioned (Ac 5*). Later in the history of the Church we find St. James inveighing against the proud and heartless rich (Ja 2i-» 5'-'), and St. Paul warning men of the spiritual dangers incident to the procuring or possessing of wealth (1 Ti 6»- '»■ "-"; cf. Rev 3"). Chakleb T. P. Gkiehson.

WEAPONS. — See Akmodb Arms.

WEASEL (chBled, Lv 11"). — An 'unclean' animal- Since the Heb. root chMad means 'to dig,' and the Arab, klvuld is the 'mole-rat,' it is practically certain that this latter is the correct translation of cMled. Ct. Mole. E. W. G. Mastebman.

WEAVDfG. — See Spinning and Weaving.

WEDDINCr. — See Makbiage.

WEDGE (of gold).— See Money, p. 628''.

WEEDS. — 1. sUph, Jon 2>, referring to sea-weeds (cf. the designation yam suph 'sea of weeds,' applied to the Red Sea [wh. see]). 2. Gr. ehortos, Sir 40", used In the same indefinite sense as Eng. 'weeds.'

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

WEEK.— See Time.

WEEKS, FEAST OP.— See Pentecost.

WEEPING. — See Moueninq Customs.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.— Since the most important of all ancient Oriental systems of weights and measures, the Babylonian, seems to have been based on a unit of length (the measures of capacity and weight being scientifically derived therefrom), it is reasonable to deal with the measures of length before proceeding to measures of capacity and weight. At the same time it seems probable that the measures of length in use in Palestine were based on a more primitive, and (so far as we know) unscientific system, which is to be con-nected with Egypt. The Babylonian system associated with Gudea (c. B.C. 3000), on statues of whom a scale, indicating a cubit of 30 digits or 198 inches, has been found engraved, was not adopted by the Hebrews.

I. Measuhes of Length.

The Hebrew unit was a cubit (i of a reed, Ezk 40»), containing 2 spans or 6 palms or 24 finger's breadths. The early system did not recognize the foot or the fathom. Measurements were taken both by the 6-cubit rod or reed and the line or 'fillet' (Ezk 40^ Jer 3V' 52", 1 K 7").

The ancient Hebrew literary authorities for the early Hebrew cubit are as follows. The 'cubit of a man' (Dt 3") was the unit by which the 'bedstead' of Og, king of Bashan, was measured (cf. Rev 21"). This implies that at the time to which the passage belongs (apparently not long before the time of Ezekiel) the Hebrews were familiar with more than one cubit, of which that in question was the ordinary working cubit. Solomon's Temple was laid out on the basis of a cubit 'after the first (or ancient) measure' (2 Oh 3'). Now Ezekiel (i(fi 43") prophesies the building of a Temple on a unit which he describes as a cubit and a hand's breadth, i.e. i of the ordinary cubit. As in his vision he is practically reproducing Solomon's Temple, we may infer that Solomon's cubit, i.e. the ancient cubit, was also i of the ordinary cubit of Ezekiel 's time. We thus have an ordinary cubit of 6, and what we may call (by analogy with the Egyptian system) the royal cubit of 7 hand's breadths. For this double system is curiously parallel to the Egyptian, in which there was a common cubit of 0-450 m. or 17-72 in., which was ? of the royal cubit of 0-525 ra. or 20-67 in. (these data are derived from actual measuring rods). A similar distinction between a common and a royal norm existed in the Babylonian weight-system. Its object there was probably to give the government an advantage in the case of taxation; probably also in the case of measures of length the excess of the royal over the common measure had a similar object.

We have at present no means of ascertaining the exact dimensions of the Hebrew ordinary and royal cubits. The balance of evidence is certainly in favour of a fairly close approximation to the Egyptian system. The estimates vary from 16 to 25-2 inches. They are based on: (1) the SUoam inscription, which says: 'The waters flowed from the outlet to the Pool 1200 cubits,' or, according to another reading, ' 1000 cubits.' The length of the canal is estimated at 537-6 m., which yields a cubit of 0 525 to 0 527 m. (20-67 to 20 75 in.) or 0-538 m. (21-18 in.) according to the reading adopted. Further uncertainty is occasioned by the possibility of the number 1200 or 1000 being only a round number. The evidence of the Siloam inscription is thus of a most unsatisfactory kind. (2) The measurements of tombs. Some of these appear to be constructed on the basis of the Egyptian cubit; others seem to yield cubits of 0-575 m. (about 22-6 in.) or 0-641 m. (about 25-2 in.). The last two cubits seem to be improbable. The measurements of another tomb (known as the

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