Zeph. ii. 9, and in Job xxx. 7. In both places, however, the Hebrew word is charullim, the same as just above indicated as occurring in Prov. xxiv. 30. THE CHARULLIM were evidently weeds, but it can hardly be supposed that the name denotes any kind of thorny or prickly plant, though some prefer so to interpret it, and, least of all, "nettles," since Job represents them as resorted to for shelter by the mean and abject: "Among the bushes they brayed; under the charullim they were gathered together." To identify the plant is utterly impossible. Probably charullim was a collective term for large, leafy, and gregarious weeds of rapid growth,-soft, green, and capable of affording the same sort of shelter that in England is found by idlers and the indigent among the kadle-docks and charlock of the rural wayside. ... ROSH, like charullim, must assuredly have been a collective term, the attributes of the plant so named pointing in various directions, and being suggestive of many different things. Upon two occasions the Authorized Version translates it "hemlock," viz., in Hos. x. 4, where the prophet clearly alludes to something that grew rankly among corn:- -"Swearing falsely in making a covenant, . . . as rosh in the furrows of the field;" and secondly, in Amos vi. 12. Elsewhere the Authorized Version translates this difficult word by "gall," as in Jer. viii. 14 and ix. 15, where, if rosh could be proved to mean a plant, it would seem to denote one producing fruit from which a poisonous or bitter juice might be expressed. Somewhat abreast of this is the allusion in Deut. xxxii. 32, where the fruit would further seem to be described as growing in clusters. The phrase "water of rosh" occurs also in Jer. xxiii. 15. In Lam. iii. 5 and iii. 19, Deut. xxix. 18, and Ps. lxix. 22, this "rosh" is associated with "travail" and with wormwood. Some connect rosh with the corn-poppy; the spurges have also been thought of; but nothing is possible within conjecture. BESHA, like the preceding, was probably a collective term, though admitting of a specialized application. Possibly an original and limited sense may have come to be superseded by a broad and general one. In Job xxxi. 40, the imprecation cited above, "Let choach grow instead of wheat," is followed by "and besha instead of barley.” It is not likely that Job intended any particular plant. For anything that can be shown to the contrary, the word might quite as fitly have been rendered "weeds." The Authorized Version here translates it very properly by "cockle," which name, though now restricted to the Githago segetum, three and four centuries ago denoted cornfield-weeds in general, as in Chaucer (14,404) and in Latimer's Sermons. Speak "2 ing of Satan, Latimer asks vehemently, "Who is able to tell his diligent preaching, which every day and every hour laboureth to sow cockle and darnel?"1 Newton, in his Herbal to the Bible, observes, "Under these names of cockle and darnel are generally understood not themselves only, but also all harmeful encumbrances, lets, hurts, and annoyances, which doe any way hinder the growth of corne.' When, however, in Isa. v. 2-4, in the celebrated and impressive image of the vineyard planted by God, "He looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth beushim," there seems good reason to feel assured that the prophet specially intends the shining and deceitful berries of the black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, another of the cosmopolitan weeds, a haunter of gardens and vineyards, and bearing fruit which so thoroughly mocks the clusters of the grapevine, that by assuming it to be the plant intended, the force of the contrast is heightened a hundredfold. THE TARES of the famous parable in Matt. xiii., though called in the Greek by an independent name, jijaviov, were probably identical with the cornfield-weeds collectively denoted by some one or more of the above-cited Hebrew terms. The word gifaviov occurs nowhere else in Scripture, and in secular Greek literature it is unknown. St. Matthew's Gospel is said by the learned to have been originally composed in the Syro-Chaldaic language, and to have been subsequently translated into the Greek, in which it has come down to us. It is quite probable, therefore, that ifaviov was, like voσwros, simply the Hellenized form of a word for which Greek supplied no equivalenta word which, in the present case, was confined ordinarily to the common people of the country, the farmers and the rustics, our Lord employing it as the one best adapted to the vulgar apprehension. The people He was addressing were not botanists; it is not conceivable that they had definite names for particular species of corn-field weeds,—how few of the populace of to-day would understand a similar appeal if the force of it turned upon an allusion to some individual kind of plant, unknown as a species, in all likelihood, to the majority; -a discreet speaker would use the broadest term he could think of, and one which he was sure everybody would understand. Regarding Čitaviov as a general and comprehensive term, the moral of the parable gains immensely in force and energy. The style of expression, then, also exactly harmonizes with "Consider the lilies," which really means, consider the sweet fantasy of the whole realm of flowering nature. 1 P. 71. Compare Shakspere, Love's Lalour Lost, iv. 3. Many endeavours have been made to prove that the caviov of the parable was the plant to-day called darnel, Lolium temulentum, a grass which in habit is very similar to wheat, growing a yard high, and producing a long, erect, and flattened ear of seed. Strictly speaking, the ear in no degree resembles wheat or any other cereal. A child could distinguish it, though, when the plant is mingled with standing corn, as often happens in our own country, it might easily be overlooked by the non-critical. If darnel is invariably intended by "lolium" when that word occurs in ancient authors, it would appear to have been considered a cornfield pest from time immemorial. But in all likelihood, with the many other ancient names which clearly had their broad as well as particular sense, lolium was quite as often used in the way that Newton tells us cockle and darnel were, as an appellation for "all harmeful encumbrances, lets, hurts, &c., which doe any way hinder the growth of corne." "Lolium and avena" in Virgil constitute a companion phrase to cockle and darnel, the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn. Pernicious weeds, in a word, without any restriction or specification as to kind, are all that need be understood by (faviov. The parable, moreover, is for all countries and all ages, and on this one ground, if no other, we may conclude that it pleased our Lord, in His infinite Divine wisdom, to employ an indefinite term. A long and curious chapter might be written upon the lolium of the ancient Romans-the apa of the ancient Greeks. Theophrastus adverts to an ancient fancy that the plant he so calls was the depraved offspring of wheat, an idea still in existence. The ignorant among the Cheshire farmers hold the same opinion with regard to their "drook." Archbishop Trench appears inclined to take the same view, saying, most strangely, in his "Notes upon the Parables," that the distinction between wheat and darnel is 66 a falsely-assumed fact." The Greek name apa signifies the usurper or destroyer. Seeing that this word apa was in common use in the time of the utterance of the Parable, it is difficult to see why, if ċċaviov had really meant the Lolium temulentum, and nothing besides, apa should not have been preferred by the Evangelists. Ovid represents lolium as one of the baneful weeds which sprang up in the cornfields when Ceres, inconsolable for the loss of her daughter, left them to take care of themselves. Virgil applies to his lolium the epithet infelix. See also Horace, Sat. 2, vi. 89. Fuchsius, in 1542, fol. 127, figures the Githago segetum as "Lolium." Mr. Bentham says of the geographical range of the Lolium temulentum, "Central and Southern Europe and Central Asia," an area which can scarcely be held to cover Palestine. It is said, however, that at the present day the Lolium temulentum "abounds in Palestine, and that the Arabs call it zuzam." The name of "tares" has in recent times been given to different species of the genus Vicia, including the Vicia sativa, valuable as a green fodder plant, and some little weeds which, being provided with clasping tendrils, and sometimes very plentiful among cereal crops, are far more injurious than the Lolium temulentum. The latter are sometimes referred to the genus Ervum, the same as that which holds the lentil. 66 "whose The OROR or 'ARAR. In Jer. xvii. 6, it is said of the man heart departeth from the Lord," that "he shall be like the oror in the desert," and shall "inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited," thus dwelling under circumstances exactly the reverse of those attending the man that "trusteth in the Lord," who "shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river." In xlviii. 6 of the same prophet, the oror of the wilderness" occurs again. There is no evidence whatever as to the true botanical meaning of oror. The balance of conjecture is in favour, perhaps, of the Savin-bush, Juniperus Sabina. The stunted appearance, the dull hue, and the seeming absence of foliage and flowers, owing to the minuteness both of the leaves and the blossoms, place it in strong contrast with the flourishing tree of the river side. It belongs to the rocky wilderness, and suits the context and the argument perfectly well. THE BOOK OF JOB AND ITS SPIRITUAL LESSONS. REGENERATION is so great a work that it can be effected only by Divine power. The greatness of this work, and the completeness of the change which it effects, are sufficiently indicated by the images which are employed to express it. It is a new birth, and those who pass through it are the children of God. It is also a new creation, and they who undergo the change are new creatures. It was this change which the Psalmist desired when he prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me ; and it was this of which the Prophet spake when he said, "The people that shall be created shall praise the Lord." The Lord is the Creator, spiritually, Spiritual creation is described under as He who creates man anew. the figure of natural creation in the beginning of Genesis; and by the seven days of God's work, during which order was introduced into the chaos, and the earth was prepared as a habitation for man, and man himself was created. Such images convey some faint idea of the nature and extent of the work of the soul's new birth or creation. The Divine operations by which it is effected are among the secrets which are not only above our consciousness, but which transcend our apprehension: they are carried on in the interiors of the mind, in the secret chambers of the human heart, and come to us only in their effects, in confidence and joy. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." We may know that by regeneration we are fearfully and wonderfully made; but in the Divine operation we cannot by searching find out God, we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection. The originating will, the conducting wisdom, and the operating power, are of the Lord alone. Man has a part to perform, but that part consists not in willing but in consenting, not in operating but in co-operating. This is man's part of the work, and if he humbly and faithfully performs it, the Lord will do all the rest. If we examine the Book of Job, we shall find that this great truth pervades the whole, and is brought out more prominently and fully as it proceeds. In His address to Job, the Lord claims the authorship of man's regeneration, and of the wisdom and power by which it is conducted and accomplished. God comes to Job in the whirlwind as He did afterwards to Elijah, for the Divine Presence produces perturbation in the natural mind, when man has still the elements of perturbation within him. Yet as it is said, in the case of Elijah, that God was not in the wind, nor in the storm, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, so may it be understood in the case of Job; for the elements of these disturbances are in the mind itself, and in them we see the state of man, but not the nature of God, for His nature is love, and His is the still small voice of love and peace. The first words addressed to Job contain a general statement of the truth that God alone is the regenerator. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?" Regeneration is thus described |