observance of a sabbath, or day of rest, not the same day of the week as that of nations which also observe a sabbath. They have generally retained some remembrance of the passover. estimates them at from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000. Epistle to the Hebrews. The object of this epistle, which ranks amongst the most important of the New Testament Scriptures, was to prove to the Jews, from their own Scriptures, the divinity, 4. They are divided into various sects. Some of them are extremely attached to the tradi-humanity, atonement and intertions of the rabbins, and to the multiplied observances enjoined in the Talmud. Others, as the Caraïtes, reject these with scorn, and adhere solely to Scripture. The majority of the Jews in Europe, and those with whose works we are mostly conversant, are rabbinists, and may be taken as representatives of the ancient Pharisees. 5. They every where consider Judea as their proper country, and Jerusalem as their metropolitan city. Wherever settled, and for however long, they still cherish a recollection of country, unparalleled among other nations. They have not lost it; they will not lose it; and they transmit it to their posterity, however comfortably they may be settled in any residence or in any country. They hope against hope, to see Zion and Jerusalem revive from their ashes. 6. The number of the Jewish nation was estimated a few years ago, for the information of Bonaparte, at the following amount'; but from what documents we know not: In the Turkish empire, R 1,000,000 300,000 1,700,000 Total, 3,000,000 This number is probably very far short of the truth. Maltebrun | cession of Christ, particularly his preeminence over Moses and the angels of God, to demonstrate the superiority of the gospel to the law; and the real object and design of the Mosaic institutions,-to fortify the minds of the Hebrew converts against apostasy under persecution, and to engage them to a deportment becoming their Christian profession. In this view, the epistle furnishes a key to the Old Testament Scriptures. The name of the writer of this epistle is no where mentioned. The majority of critics, however, refer it to the apostle Paul; though several writers of sound judgment, learning and piety, (among whom is Calvin,) are not satisfied with the evidence on which this opinion rests. HEBRON, one of the most ancient cities of Canaan, being built seven years before Tanis, the capital of Lower Egypt. Num. 13:22. It was first called Kirjath Arbu, i. e. the eity of Arba. Hebron was given to Judah, and became a eity of refuge. It was situated on an eminence, about twenty-seven miles south of Jerusalem, and about the same distance north of Beersheba. Abraham, Sarah and Isaac were buried near the city, in the cave of Machpelah. Gen. 23:2,9. After the death of Saul, David fixed his residence at Hebron, and it was for some time the metropolis of his kingdom. 2 Sam. 2:1-4. It is now called El Hhalil, and contains a population || of about 400 families of Arabs, besides a hundred Jewish houses. "They are so mutinous," says D'Arvieux," that they rarely pay the duties without force, and commonly a reinforcement from Jerusalem is necessary. The people are brave, and, when in revolt, extend their incursions as far as Bethlehem, and make amends by their pillage for what is exacted from them. They are so well acquainted with the windings of the mountains, and know so well how to post themselves to advantage, that they close all the passages, and exclude every assistance from reaching the Soubachi. The Turks dare not dwell here, believing that they could not live a week if they attempted it. The Greeks have a church in the village." At present, however, the Turks dwell there, and there is a Mohammedan governor. HELBON, a city of Syria, famous for its wines, Ezek. 27:18, and probably the present Haleb, or, as called in Europe, Aleppo. It is situated, according to Russell, who has given a very full description of it, in lat. 36° 11' 25" N. long. 37° 9' E.; about 180 miles north of Damascus, and about 80 inland from the coast of the Mediterranean sea. In 1822, Aleppo was visited by a dreadful earthquake, by which it was almost entirely destroyed. HELIOPOLIS, a celebrated city of Egypt, called in Coptic, Hebrew, and in the English version, On, Gen. 41:45. The Egyptian name signifies light, sun; and hence the Greek name Heliopolis, which signifies city of the sun. The Seventy mention expressly that On is Heliopolis. Sept. Ex. 1:11. Jeremiah, 43:13, calls this city in In Hebrew Beth-Shemesh, i. e. house or temple of the sun. Ezekiel 30:17, the name is pronounced Aven, which is the same as On. The Arabs call it Ain-Shems, fountain of the sun. All these names come from the circumstance that the city was the ancient seat of the Egyptian worship of the sun. It was in ruins in the time of Strabo, who mentions that two obelisks had already been carried away to Rome. The present state of these ruins is described by Niebuhr: "The ruins of this ancient city lie near the village Matarea, about two hours [six miles] from Cairo, towards the north-east. But nothing now remains except immense dikes and mounds full of small pieces of marble, granite and pottery, some remnants of a sphinx, and an obelisk still standing erect. This last is one single block of granite, covered on its four sides with hieroglyphics. Its height above ground is fifty-eight feet. It belonged to the ancient temple of the sun." Another Heliopolis is alluded to in Scripture under the name of the "plain of Aven," or field of sun, Amos 1:5. This was the Heliopolis of Cole-Syria, now Baalbec. the HELL. The Hebrew Sheol, and the Greek Hades, usually translated hell, often signify the grave, or the place of departed spirits. Ps. 16:10. Isa. 14:9. Ezek. 31:16. Here was the rich man, after being buried. Luke 16:23. The rebellious angels were also "cast down into hell, and delivered unto chains of darkness." 2 Pet. 2:4. These and many other passages in the O. T. show the futility of that opinion which attributes to the Hebrews an ignorance of a future || mentioned in Scripture. It was state. The Sheol of the Old Testament, or the Hades of the New, according to the notions of the Hebrews,was a vast subterranean receptacle, where the souls of the dead existed in a separate state until the resurrection of their bodies. The region of the blessed, or paradise, they supposed to be in the upper part of this receptacle, while beneath was the abyss, or Gehenna, in which the souls of the wicked were subjected to punishment. Isa. 14:9. Luke 16:23. called by the Sidonians Sirion, and by the Ammonites Sherir. Deut. 3:9. It is an eastern arm of Anti-libanus, branching off from that mountain a little lower down than Damascus, and extending in a direction south-southeast to the vicinity of the lake of Tiberias. The northern part is lofty, and is now called Djebel-elSheikh, and the southern, which is lower, Djebel Heish. Some have, without good reason, supposed that there was another Hermon, near mount Tabor; and have, therefore, improperly given this name to the mountains of Gilboa. Ps. 89:12. In Ps. 43:6, the English version has Hermonites; it should be the Hermons, the word in Hebrew being in the plural to denote a chain of mountains; just as the Alps are always spoken of in the plural. HEROD, the name of four princes, Idumeans by descent, who governed either the whole or a part of Judea, under the Romans, and are mentioned in the N. T. 1. Herod the Great. Matt. c. 2. Luke 1:5. He was the son of Antipater, an Idumean, who was in high favor with Julius Cæsar. At the age of fifteen But the term hell is most commonly applied to the place of punishment in the unseen world. Jews, Mussulmans and Christians have all depicted the horrors and the punishments of hell as their several fancies have conceived of it; but without entering into a discussion upon these topics, we may remark, that Scripture is decisive as to the principal punishment, consisting in a hopeless separation from God, and a privation of his sight, and of the beatific vision of his countenance. HERESY, an option, or choice. It is usually taken in a bad sense, for some fundamental error in religion, adhered to with obsti-years, Herod was constituted by nacy. Paul says that there his father procurator of Galilee would be heresies in the church, under Hyrcanus II, who was that they who are tried might be then at the head of the Jewish made manifest. 1 Cor. 11:19. nation; while his brother PhasaFrom the beginning of the Chris-elus was intrusted with the same tian church, there have been dan-authority over Judea. In these gerous heresies, which attacked stations they were afterwards the most essential doctrines of confirmed by Antony, with the our religion, such as the divinity title of tetrarch, about the year of Jesus Christ, his office of Mes- 41 B. C. The power of Hyrsiah, the reality and truth of his canus had always been opposed incarnation, the resurrection of by his brother Aristobulus; and the dead, the freedom of Chris- now Antigonus, the son of the tians from legal ceremonies, and latter, continued in hostility to many other points. Herod, and was assisted by the HERMON, a mountain often || Jews. At first he was unsuc cessful, and was driven by Herod out of the country; but having obtained the aid of the Parthians, he at length succeeded in defeating Herod, and acquired possession of the whole of Judea, about the year 40 B. C. Herod meanwhile fled to Rome; and being there declared king of Judea through the excrtions of Antony, he collected an army, vanquished Antigonus, recovered Jerusalem, and extirpated all the family of the Maccabees, B. C. 37. After the battle of Actium, in which his patron Antony was defeated, Herod joined the party of Octavius, and was confirmed by him in all his possessions. He endeavored to conciliate the affections of the Jews, by rebuilding and decorating the temple, (see TEMPLE,) and by founding or enlarging many cities and towns; but the prejudices of the nation against a foreign yoke were only heightened when he introduced quinquennial games in honor of Cæsar, and erected theatres and gymnasia at Jerusalem. The cruelty of his disposition, also, was such as ever to render him odious. He put to death his own wife Maríamne, with her two sons Alexander and Aristobulus; and when he himself was at the point of death, he caused a number of the most illustrious of his subjects to be thrown into prison, and exacted from his sister a promise that they should be murdered the moment he expired, in order, as he said, that tears should be shed at the death of Herod. This promise, however, was not fulfilled. He died A. D. 2, aged seventy years, having reigned as king about forty years. It was during his reign that Jesus was born at Bethlehem; and Herod, in consequence of his suspicious tem per, and in order to destroy Jesus, gave orders for the destruction of all the children of two years old and under in the place; as is also mentioned by Macrobius. After the death of Herod, half of his kingdom, including Judea, Idumea and Samaria, was given to his son Archelaus, with the title of ethnarch; while the remaining half was divided between two of his other sons, Herod Antipas and Philip, with the title of tetrarchs; the former having the regions of Galilee and Perea, and the latter Batanea, Trachonitis and Auranitis. 2. Herod Antipas. Matt. 14: 1,3. Mark 6:14. Luke 3:1, &c. He was the son of Herod the Great by Malthace his Samaritan wife, and own brother to Archelaus, along with whom he was educated at Rome. After the death of his father, he was appointed by Augustus to be tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, i. e. the southern part of the country east of the Jordan, Luke 3:1, whence, also, the very general appellation of king is sometimes given to him, e. g. Mark 6:14. He first married a daughter of Aretas, an Arabian king, but afterwards becoming enamored of Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip, and his own niece, he dismissed his former wife, and induced Herodias to leave her own husband, and connect herself with him. At her instigation he afterwards went to Rome to ask for the dignity and title of king; but being there accused before Caligula, at the instance of Herod Agrippa, his nephew and the brother of Herodias, he was banished to Lugdunum (now Lyons) in Gaul, about A. D. 41, and the provinces which he governed were given to Herod Agrippa. It was Herod Antipas who caused John the Baptist to be beheaded. He also appears to have been a follower or at least a favorer of the sect of the Sadducees. Mark 8:15. Comp. Matt. 16:6. which had belonged to his uncle' Herod. He was afterwards transferred (A. D. 53) from Chalcis, with the title of king, to the government of those provinces which his father at first possessed, viz. Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis and Abilene, to which seyeral other cities were afterwards added. He is mentioned in the N. T. and by Josephus only by the name of Agrippa. It was before him that St. Paul was brought by Festus. HERODIANS, partisans of Herod Antipas. Matt. 22:16. Mark 3:6. Herod was dependent on the Roman power, and his adherents therefore maintained the propriety of paying tribute to Cæsar, which the Pharisees denied. This explains Matt. 22:16. 3. Herod Agrippa Major or I. Acts c. 12. 23:35. He was a grandson of Herod the Great and Mariamne, and son of the Aristobulus who was put to death with his mother, by the orders of his father. (See above in No. 1.) On the accession of Caligula to the imperial throne, Agrippa was taken from prison, where he had been confined by Tiberius, and received from the emperor, A. D. 38, the title of king, together with the provinces which had belonged to his uncle Philip the tetrarch, (see in No. 1,) and also to the tetrarch Lysanias. (See in ABILENE.) He was afterwards confirmed in the possession of these by Claudius, who also annexed to his kingdom all those parts of Judea and Samaria which had formerly belonged to his grandfather Herod, A. D. 43. In order to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he commenced a persecution against the Christians; but seems to have proceeded no further than to put to death James, and to imprison Peter, Acts c. 12, since he soon after died suddenly and misera-her and Herod. When Herod bly at Cesarea, A. D. 44. He was banished to Lyons, she also is mentioned by Josephus only accompanied him. Matt. 14:3,6. under the name of Agrippa. Mark 6:17. Luke 3:19. See HEROD, No. 2. 4. Herod Agrippa Minor or II. Acts c. 25. c. 26. He was the son of Herod Agrippa I, and was educated at Rome, under the care of the emperor Claudius. On the death of his father, which happened when he was seventeen years old, instead of causing him to succeed to his father's kingdom, the emperor set him over the kingdom of Chalcis, HERODIAS, a granddaughter of Herod the Great and Mariamne, daughter of Aristobulus, and sister of Herod Agrippa I. She was first married to her uncle Herod Philip, but afterwards abandoned him and connected herself with his brother Herod Antipas. It was by her artifice, that Herod was persuaded to cause John the Baptist to be put to death, she being enraged at John on account of his bold denunciation of the incestuous connection which subsisted between HERON, a water-fowl of the crane species. This name is put in Lev. 11:19. Deut. 14:18, for a Hebrew word of very uncertain meaning. Some say crane, others curlew; others understand the genus of parrots; but that the creature intended is some species of water-bird, there can be little doubt, if we give the |