Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
•The hill of Moreh, at the foot of which the Midianites and Amalekites were encamped before
Gideon’s attack upon them. (Judges 7:1) It lay in the valley of Jezreel, rather on the north side of
the valley, and north also of the eminence on which Gideon’s little band of heroes was clustered.
These conditions are most accurately fulfilled if we assume Jebel ed-Duhy, the “Little Hermon”
of the modern travellers, 1815 feet above the Mediterranean, to be Moreh, the Ain-Jalood to be
the spring of Harod, and Gideon’s position to have been on the northeast slope of Jebel Fukua
(Mount Gilboa), between the village of Nuris and the last-mentioned spring.
Moreshethgath
(possession of Gath), a place named by the prophet Micah. (Micah 1:14) The prophet was
himself a native of a place called Moresheth.
Moriah
(chosen by Jehovah).
•The land of Moriah—On “one of the mountains” in this district took place the sacrifice of Isaac.
(Genesis 22:2) Its position is doubtful, some thinking it to be Mount MOriah, others that Moreh,
near Shechem, is meant. [See Mount, Mount, Mountain MORIAH]
•Mount Moriah .—The elevation on which Solomon built the temple, where God appeared to David
“in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” it is the Eastern eminence of Jerusalem, separated
from Mount Zion by the Tyropoeon valley. The tope was levelled by Solomon, and immense walls
were built around it from the base to enlarge the level surface for the temple area. A tradition
which first appears in a definite shape in Josephus, and is now almost universally accepted, asserts
that the “Mount Moriah” of the Chronicles is identical with the “mountain” in “the land of Moriah”
of Genesis, and that the spot on which Jehovah appeared to David, and on which the temple was
built, was the very spot of the sacrifice of Isaac. (Smith, Stanley and Grove are, however, inclined
to doubt this tradition.)
Mortar
(Genesis 11:3; Exodus 1:14; Leviticus 14:42,45; Isaiah 41:25; Ezekiel 13:10,11,14,15; 22:28;
Nehemiah 3:14) The various compacting substances used in Oriental buildings appear to be—
•Bitumen, as in the Babylonian structures;
•Common mud or moistened clay;
•A very firm cement compounded of sand, ashes and lime, in the proportions respectively of 1,2,3,
well pounded, sometimes mixed and sometimes coated with oil, so as to form a surface almost
impenetrable to wet or the weather. In Assyrian and also Egyptian brick buildings, stubble or
straw, as hair or wool among ourselves, was added to increase the tenacity.
“a wide-mouthed vessel in form of an inverted bell, in which substances are pounded or bruised
with a pestle.”—Webster. The simplest and probably most ancient method of preparing corn for
food was by pounding it between two stones. The Israelites in the desert appear to have possessed
mortars and handmills among their necessary domestic utensils. When the manna fell they gathered
it, and either ground it in the mill or pounded it in the mortar till it was fit for use. (Numbers 11:8)
So in the present day stone mortars are used by the Arabs to pound wheat for their national dish
kibby . Another word occurring in (Proverbs 27:22) probably denotes a mortar of a larger kind in
which corn was pounded: “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a
pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.” Corn may be separated from its husk and all
its good properties preserved by such an operation, but the fool’s folly is so essential a part of
himself that no analogous process can remove it from him. Such seems the natural interpretation
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William Smith