by a most serupulous and literal observation of the law, gave tithes of mint, anise and cummin. Matt. 23:23. Our Saviour does not censure this exactness, but complains, that while they were so precise in these lesser matters, they neglected the essential commandments of the law.

MIRACLE, a sign, wonder, prodigy. These terms are commonly used in Scripture to denote an action, event, or effect, superior (or contrary) to the general and established laws of nature.

MIRRORS, in ancient times, were simply plates of polished brass or other metal. See LA

VER.

MITE, a small piece of money, two of which made a kodrantes, or the fourth part of the Roman as. The as was equal to three and one tenth farthings sterling, or about one and one half cent. The mite, therefore, would be equal to about two mills. Luke 12:59. 21:2.

MOABITES, the descendants of Moab, son of Lot, whose habitation was east of Jordan, and adjacent to the Dead sea, on both sides the river Arnon, on which their capital city was situated; although the river Arnon was strictly and properly the northern boundary of Moab. This country was originally possessed by a race of giants called Emim, Deut. 2:11, whom the Moabites conquered. Afterwards, the Amorites took a part from the Moabites, Judg. 11:13, 15; but Moses reconquered it, and gave it to the tribe of Reuben. The Moabites were spared by Moses, as God had restricted him, Deut. 2:9; but there always was a great antipathy between them and the Israelites, which occasioned many wars. Balaam

|| seduced the Hebrews to idolatry and uncleanness, by means of the daughters of Moab. Numb. 25:1,2. God ordained that this people should not enter into the congregation of his people, or be capable of office, &c. even to the tenth generation, Deut. 23:3, because they had the inhumanity to refuse the Israelites a passage through their country, nor would supply them with bread and water in their necessity.

MOLOCH, or MILCOM, the name of a heathen deity, worshipped by the Ammonites. The Israelites also introduced the worship of this idol, both during their wanderings in the desert, and after their settlement in Palestine. The principal sacrifices to Moloch were human victims, viz. children who were cast alive into the flames before his statue. (See in HINNOM.) Comp. Lev. 18:21. 20:2, &c.

MONEY was anciently weighed, and did not at first exist in the form of coins. The most ancient commerce was conducted by barter, or exchanging one sort of merchandise for another. One man gave what he could spare to another, who gave him in return part of his superabundance. Afterwards, the more || precious metals were used in traffic, as a value more generally known and stated. Lastly, they gave this metal, by public authority, a certain mark, a certain weight, and a certain degree of alloy, to fix its value, and to save buyers and sellers the trouble of weighing and examining the coins.

Volney says, "The practice of weighing money is general in Syria, Egypt, and all Turkey. No piece, however effaced, is refused there: the merchant

it, as in the days of Abraham, when he purchased his sepulchre. In considerable payments, an agent of exchange is sent for, who counts paras by thousands, rejects pieces of false money, and weighs all the sequins, either separately or together." This may serve to illustrate the phrase, "current money with the merchant." Gen. 23:16.

MONTH. The Hebrew months were lunar months, i. e. from one new moon to another. These lunar months were each reckoned at twenty-nine days and a half; or rather one was of thirty days, the following of twenty-nine, and so on alternately that which had thirty days was called a full or complete month; that which had but twenty-nine days was called incomplete. The new moon was always the beginning of the month, and this day they called Neomenia, new-moon day, or new month.

After the exodus, which happened in the month of March, God ordained that the holy year, that is, the calendar of religious feasts and ceremonies, should begin at Nisan, the seventh month of the civil year, the civil year being left unchanged, which the Hebrews continued to begin at the month Tisri, September. After the Babylonish captivity, the Jews, being but a handful of people in the midst of others surrounding them, complied with such customs and manners of dividing times and seasons, as were used by the people that ruled over them; first, of the Chaldeans; afterwards, of the Persians; and lastly, of the Grecians. It should, however, be here remarked, that other interpreters, with more probability,

Isaac. Gen. c. 22.

MOSES, the illustrious prophet and legislator of the Hebrews, who led them from Egypt to the promised land. His history is too extensive to permit insertion here, and in general too well known to need it. It is enough simply to remark, that it is divided into three great epochs, each of forty years. The first extends from his birth, when he was exposed in the Nile, and found and adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, to his flight to Midian. During this time he lived at the Egyptian court, and "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." Acts 7:22. This is no unmeaning praise; the "wisdom" of the Egyptians, and especially of their priests, was then the profoundest in the world. The second period was from his flight till his return to Egypt, Acts 7:30; during the whole of which interval he appears to have lived in Midian, and sustained the character probably of a shepherd chief, like the Bedouin sheikhs of the present day. What a contrast between the former period, spent amid the splendors and learning of a court, and this lonely nomadic life! Still it was in this way, no doubt, that God prepared him to be the instrument of deliverance to his people during the third period of his life, which dates from the exodus out of Egypt to his death on mount Nebo. In this interval how much did he not accomplish, as the immediate agent of the Most High!

The life and institutions of Moses present one of the finest subjects for the pen of a philosophical Christian historian, who

biblical antiquary. His institutions changed the whole character of the Hebrews, and transformed them from a nation of shepherds into a people of fixed residence and agricultural habits. Through that people, and through the Bible, the influence of these institutions has been extended over the world; and often where the letter has not been observed, the spirit of them has been adopted. Thus it was in the laws established by the pilgrim fathers of New England; and if there is aught of value in the institutions which they founded, it is to be ascribed to the influence of the Hebrew legislator, for they drew solely from his precepts.

Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, as it is called, or the five books of Moses. In the composition of them he was very probably assisted by Aaron, who kept a register of public transactions. Ex. 17:14. 24:4,7. 34:27. Num. 33: 1,2. Deut. 31:24, &c. Some things were added by a later inspired hand; e. g. the last chapter of Deuteronomy.

MOTH. The common moth is an insect destructive to woollen cloths. The egg is laid by a small white miller, and produces a small shining worm; which by another transformation becomes a miller. The allusions to the moth, as devouring clothes, and as a frail and feeble insect, are frequent in Scripture. Is. 50:9. Job 4:19. 27:18. Matt. 6:19,

evening and night, differing in this respect from the tribe of butterflies, which fly only by day. Their larvae, or the worms from which they spring, are active and quick in motion, mostly smooth, and prey voraciously on the food adapted to them; the common moth on cloths, others on the leaves of plants, &c.

MOURNING. The Hebrews, at the death of their friends and relations, gave all possible demonstrations of grief and mourning. They wept, tore their clothes, smote their breasts, fasted, and lay upon the ground, went barefooted, pulled their hair and beards, or cut them, and made incisions on their breasts, or tore them with their nails. Lev. 19:28. 21:5. Jer. 16:6. The time of mourning was commonly seven days; but it was lengthened or shortened according to circumstances. That for Moses and Aaron was prolonged to thirty days. Num. 20:29. Deut. 34:8.

During the time of their mourning, the near relations of the deceased continued sitting in their houses, and ate on the ground. The food they took was thought unclean, and even themselves were judged impure. "Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted," Hos. 9:4. Their faces were covered, and in all that time they could not apply themselves to any occupation, nor read the book of the law, nor say their

usual prayers. They did not

dress themselves, nor make their beds, nor uncover their heads, nor shave themselves, nor cut their nails, nor go into the bath, nor salute any body. Nobody spoke to them unless they spoke first. Their friends commonly went to visit and comfort them,

bringing them food. They also went up to the roof, or upon the platform of their houses, to bewail their misfortune: "Through all the cities of Moab (says Isaiah) they shall gird themselves with sackcloth on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abundantly." c. 15:3. The mourning habit among the Hebrews was not fixed either by law or custom. We only find in Scripture, that they used to tear their garments, a custom still observed; but now they tear a small part merely, and for form's sake. 2 Sam. 13:19. 2 Chr. 34:27. Ezra 9:3. Job 2:12. Joel 2:13. Anciently, in times of mourning, they clothed themselves in sackcloth, or hair-cloth, that is, in coarse or ill made clothes, of brown or black stuff. 2 Sam. 3:31. 1 K. 21:27. Esth. 4:1. Ps. 35:13. 69:11.

They hired women to weep and mourn, and also persons to play on instruments, at the funerals of the Hebrews. Jer. 9:17. In Matt. 9:23, we observe a company of minstrels or players on the flute, at the funeral of a girl of twelve years of age. All that met a funeral procession, or a company of mourners, out of civility were to join them, and to mingle their tears with those who wept.

The custom of hiring women to weep and mourn has come down to modern times. The following account of such a scene at Nablous, the ancient Shechem, is from Dr. Jowett. The governor of the city had died the very morning of Dr. J.'s arrival. On coming within sight of the gate, we perceived a numerous company of females, who were singing in a kind of recitative, far from melancholy,

and beating time with their hands. If this be mourning, I thought, it is of a strange kind. It had indeed, sometimes, more the air of angry defiance. But on our reaching the gate, it was suddenly exchanged for most hideous plaints, and shrieks, which, with the feeling, that we were entering a city at no time celebrated for its hospitality, struck a very dismal impression upon my mind. They accompanied us a few paces; but it soon appeared that the gate was their station, to which, having received nothing from us, they returned. We

learnt, in the course of the evening, that these were only a small detachment of a very numerous body of cunning women, who were filling the whole city with their cries, taking up a wailing, with the design, as of old, to make the eyes of all the inhabitants run down with tears, and their eyelids gush out with waters. Jer. 9:17,18. For this good service, they would, the next morning, wait upon the government and principal persons, to receive some trifling fee." MOUSE, in the Scriptures, is used only of the field-mouse. Some have supposed it to be the jerboa; but this is more probably the coney, which see. word rendered mouse probably includes various species of these animals, some of which

The

were

eaten. Moses, Lev. 11:29, declared it to be unclean, which implies that it was sometimes eaten; and Isaiah, 66:17, reproaches the Jews with this practice. Mice made great havoc in the fields of the Philistines, after that people had taken the ark of the Lord, which induced them to send it back with mice and emerods of gold. 1 Sam. 5:6, &c. 6:4,5. The field-mice

are equally prevalent in those regions at the present day. Burckhardt, in speaking of Hamath, says, "The western part of its territory is the granary of northern Syria; though the harvest never yields more than ten for one, chiefly in consequence of the immense numbers of mice, which sometimes wholly destroy the crops." See HAMATH.

MULBERRY-TREE. The word translated mulberry-tree signifies literally weeping, and indicates, therefore, some tree which distils balsam or gum. The particular species is not known. 2 Sam. 5:23,24. 1 Chr. 14:14,15.

MULE, a mixed animal, the offspring of a horse and an ass. A mule is smaller than a horse, and has long ears, though not so long as those of an ass. It is a remarkably hardy, patient, obstinate, sure-footed animal, and lives twice as long as a horse. Mules are much used in Spain and South America, for transporting goods across the mountains. So also in the Alps, they are used by travellers among the mountains, where a horse would hardly be able to pass with safety.

There is no probability that the Jews bred mules, because it was forbidden to couple creatures of different species. Lev. 19:19. But they were not forbidden to use them. Thus we may observe, especially after David's time, that mules, male and female, were common among the Hebrews formerly they used only male and female asses. 2 Sam. 13:29. 18:9. 1 K. 1:33. 10:25. 18:5, &c.

In Gen. 36:24, Anah is said to have found mules in the desert; but the Hebrew word here probably means hot springs. See

ΑΝΔΗ.