Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
to the Euxine Sea and the Persian Gulf on the one hand and the Gulf of Finland on the other, would
open up by three separate channels the “fountains of the great deep,” and which included an area
of 2000 miles each way, would, at the end of the fortieth day, be sunk in its centre to the depth of
16,000 feet,—sufficient to bury the loftiest mountains of the district; and yet, having a gradient of
declination of but sixteen feet per mile, the contour of its hills and plains would remain apparently
what they had been before, and the doomed inhabitants would, but the water rising along the
mountain sides, and one refuge after another swept away. -ED.) After the Flood .—Noah’s great
act after he left the ark was to build an altar and to offer sacrifices. This is the first altar of which
we read in Scripture, and the first burnt sacrifice. Then follows the blessing of God upon Noah and
his sons. Noah is clearly the head of a new human family, the representative of the whole race. It
is as such that God makes his covenant with him; and hence selects a natural phenomenon as the
sign of that covenant. The bow in the cloud, seen by every nation under heaven, is an unfailing
witness to the truth of God. Noah now for the rest of his life betook himself to agricultural pursuits.
It is particularly noticed that he planted a vineyard. Whether in ignorance of its properties or
otherwise we are not informed, but he drank of the juice of the grape till he became intoxicated
and shamefully exposed himself in his own tent. One of sons, Ham, mocked openly at his father’s
disgrace. The others, with dutiful care and reverence, endeavored to hide it. When he recovered
from the effects of his intoxication, he declared that a curse should rest upon the sons of Ham. With
the curse on his youngest son was joined a blessing on the other two. After this prophetic blessing
we hear no more of the patriarch but the sum of his years, 950.
Nob
(high place) (1 Samuel 22:19; Nehemiah 11:32) a sacerdotal city in the tribe of Benjamin and
situated on some eminence near Jerusalem. It was one of the places where the ark of Jehovah was
kept for a time during the days of its wanderings. (2 Samuel 6:1) etc. But the event for which Nob
was most noted in the Scripture annals was a frightful massacre which occurred there in the reign
of Saul. (1 Samuel 22:17-19)
Nobah
(barking), an Israelite warrior, (Numbers 32:42) who during the conquest of the territory on the
east of Jordan possessed himself of the town of Kenath and the villages or hamlets dependent upon
it, and gave them his own name. (B.C.1450.) For a certain period after the establishment of the
Israelite rule the new name remained, (Judges 8:11) but it is not again heard of, and the original
appellation, as is usual in such cases, appears to have recovered its hold, has since retained; for in
the slightly-modified form of Kunawat it is the name of the place to the present day.
Nod
(flight), the land to which Cain fled after the murder of Abel. [Cain]
Nodab
(nobility), the name of an Arab tribe mentioned only in (1 Chronicles 6:19) in the account of
the war of the Reubenites against the Hagarites. vs. 9-22. It is probable that Nodab, their ancestor,
was the son of Ishmael, being mentioned with two of his other sons in the passage above cited, and
was therefore a grandson of Abraham.
Nogah
(brightness), one of the thirteen sons of David who were born to him in Jerusalem, (1 Chronicles
3:7; 14:6) (B.C. 1050-1015.)
Nohah
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William Smith