It has been estimated that 440 grains of silver of Japheth (Gen. x. 2). The same word is would purchase as much in the fourth cen- rendered Medes, and sometimes Media, withtury before Christ as 4,400 grains would pur-out any proper ground of variation. chase in England in 1780. MEAT, MEATS (Gen. i. 29; Mark vii. 19). The food of the Hebrews was regulated by the appointment of God. (See CLEAN, FOOD.) Their methods of cooking meat were various, though they never ate of food dressed by any other than a Jew, nor of food prepared by other kitchen utensils than those of their own nation. What animals they might eat, and what they ought not, were particularly commanded, Lev. xi.; Deut. xiv. The import of the word meat seems to have undergone a considerable change since our version of the Bible was made; for in this it means food in general; or, when confined to one species of food, always signifies meal, flour, or grain, but never flesh, which is now the usual acceptation of the word. A "meat offering" in the Scriptures is always a vegetable, and never an animal offering; and it might now be rendered a "bread offering," or a "meal offering," instead of a "meat-offering." MEATS OFFERED TO IDOLS (1 Cor. viii. 7, 10). At the first settling of the Church there were many disputes concerning the use of meats offered to idols. Some newly converted Christians, convinced that an idol was nothing, and that the distinction of clean and unclean creatures was abolished by our Saviour, ate indifferently whatever was served up to them, even among pagans, without inquiring whether the meats had been offered to idols. They took the same liberty in buying meat sold in the market, not regarding whether it were pure or impure, according to the Jews, or whether it had been offered to idols or not. But other Christians, weaker or less instructed, were offended at this liberty, and thought that eating of meat which had been offered to idols was a kind of partaking in that wicked and sacrilegious act. This diversity of opinion produced some scandal, for which Paul thought it behoved him to provide a remedy (Rom. xiv. 20, 21). He determined, therefore, that all things were clean (Tit. i. 15), and that an idol was nothing at all; that a man might safely eat of whatever was sold in the market, and need not very scrupulously inquire from whence it came; and that if an unbeliever should invite a believer to eat with him, the believer might eat of whatever was set before him, &c., (1 Cor. x. 25, &c.) But at the same time he enjoins that the laws of charity and prudence should be observed; that believers should be cautious of scandalizing or offending weak minds; for though all things might be lawful, yet all things were not always expedient. Watson's Dictionary. MEDEBA (Isa. xxi. 2)—a city in the eastern part of the territory of Reuben, which still retains nearly its ancient name, Madaba, 4 miles south-east of Heshbon. The site of the old town shows the ruins of a temple and the excavations of ponds and reservoirs. MEDIA, called so in Scripture after a son The country was bounded on the north and east by the Caspian Sea; on the south by Assyria, Susiana, and Persia proper; on the west by the Greater Armenia; and on the east by Parthia and Hyrcania. It was divided originally into six provinces, which were afterwards reduced to two-Media Magna and Media Atropatene. The first, or northern province, is wild and hilly, cold and bleak, but with numerous valleys of great fertility. Its modern capital is Tabriz, a choice residence of the Persian kings. The second, or more southern province, having the Zagros mountains on its western frontier, and comprising a large portion of Kurdistan, consists of numerous plateaus, more than 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, with many fertile openings stretching away among multitudinous chains of mountains. Crops and fruits of all kinds were abundant in this portion of the kingdom. The "Nisan plains," famous for their breed of horses, lay between Behistun and Khorran-abad. country was an oblong parallelogram, 600 miles by near 300, and was as large as Assyria and Babylonia put together. It seems probable that both provinces had a capital of the same name-Ecbatana; but it is the southern city of this name, or Takht-i-Suleiman, recognized also as Hamadan, which ancient authors describe with many exaggerations. The The early history of the Medes is wrapped in profound obscurity. They first appear distinctly in Scripture in the historical information that the conquered inhabitants of Samaria were placed by the Assyrian king "in the cities of the Medes." Then they are found in the prophetic utterance of Isaiah against Babylon, which gives also a vivid glimpse into their character: "Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children" (Isa. xiii. 17, 18). That at this period they were a noted warlike people, ready by blood or treaty for an alliance with the nation into which they were afterwards absorbed, is plain from another oracle of the same prophet: "Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media" (Isa. xxi. 2). That the Medes were an Aryan race is apparent from the fact that they were called so, according to Herodotus, by other countries; and probably they spread in successive migrations from Western Hindostan. There seems to have been, at a very remote era, an Aryan element of population in Chaldea by the side of Turanian and Semitic races. (See CHALDEA.) But the distinctive name seems to have sunk into obscurity for many centuries, or it may have been absorbed in some more general appellation. The term Mede first appears on the Assyrian monuments about B. c.880. When 66 and tribute was concluded. These predatory Cyaxares was succeeded by his son Astyages about 594 B.C.-a prince neither famous for ability nor conquests. The stories told of his court by the old writers, as Herodotus and Xenophon, may be exaggerations, but they show us that prince and people were rapidly degenerating; and that, after the conquest of Assyria, the hardy Median nation was corrupted by luxury, and gradually became so effeminate as to be an easy prey to some brave and ambitious neighbour. That neighbour was the Persian branch of the same great Aryan race dwelling to the south of Media. they are first found on the monuments, they bear their well-known title, and inhabit the territory which they held for many subsequent centuries. But at this early period they were weak, and unable to resist invasion. Shalmanezer II. conducted an expedition into the country in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, destroyed the population, and carried off immense booty. His son, Shammas-Iva, repeat-waned; and it became an easy prey. Chaldea ing the invasion, met apparently with but a feeble resistance, but did not occupy the territory which he had overrun. Under the successor of Shammas-Iva, the Medes apparently yielded themselves as vassals and tributaries. The tribute exacted was paid in horses. This season of submission passed, and the indomitable Median spirit rose again, when Sargon conquered several insurgent towns, and formally annexed them to his own kingdom. To perpetuate the subjugation, he also, according to his favourite policy, erected over Media a number of military forts or garrisons. Sargon's plan of action was, as himself expresses it, 'to change the abodes" of his vassals by wholesale deportations. Babylonians, Cuthæans, and Sepharvaites, were placed in Samaria, and Israelites were planted in the cities of Media (2 Ki. xvi. 24). Sargon is the only king who could have done as the Bible describes, being the first who possessed any of the Median towns. In one of his inscriptions, Sennacherib, son of Sargon, boasts of receiving a deputation from some remote province of Media, "of which the kings his fathers had not so much as heard;" and Esarhaddon mentions a Median invasion, the seizure of two chiefs, and the capture of great spoil. Media was thus for many years a refractory portion of Assyrian territory. During this time it was not a monarchy, but only a confederation of warlike clans, each under its own chief; and it is not distinctly known how it so rapidly rose to military unity and supremacy. The story of Herodotus is not to be wholly credited, and the annals of Ctesias are without foundation. But it is beyond doubt that, towards the end of the Assyrian empire, Media sprang up into a great warlike power, though it is impossible to assign a cause for its sudden development under Cyaxares. On the Behistun monument, the royal race of the Medes is traced only to him, but not beyond him. When, in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, a Sagartian rebel claimed the throne of the province, his chief plea was his descent from Cyaxares. Saracus, an effeminate king, ascended the throne of Nineveh about 647 B.C.; and in the thirteenth year of his reign, the Medes suddenly marched out of the passes of the Zagros mountains and overran the country, but meeting the Assyrian host, were signally defeated, with immense slaughter. Having re-organized his army, Cyaxares made a second and more successful attempt, but was obliged to retreat into his own country, as Herodotus states, to defend it from a Scythic invasion. Cyaxares was at first defeated by these strangers, and a treaty of peace, vassalage, The priority of the Medes was, however, long recognized, as in the common phrase, "the laws of the Medes and Persians;" and the invaders of Greece, under Darius and Xerxes, are called Medes by Eschylus and Thucydides. The two nations were alike in blood, language, and manners, and the amalgamation was therefore more easily accomplished. But the old restless spirit was not wholly quelled, and in the reign of Darius Media rebelled, and elevated Phraortes to the throne. The following is the account of the rebellion and its extinction, given by Darius himself on the monumental rock of Behistun: 66 'Says Darius the king-Then I went out from Babylon. I proceeded to Media. When I reached Media, a city of Media named Kudrusia, there that Phraortes, who was called king of Media, came with an army against me to do battle. There we fought a battle. Ormazd brought help to me; by the grace of Ormazd I entirely defeated the army of Phraortes. On the 26th day of the month Adukanish, then it was we thus fought the battle. Says Darius the king-Then that Phraortes, with his faithful horsemen, fled from thence to a district of Media, called Rhages. Then I sent an army, by which Phraortes was taken (and) brought before me. I cut off both his nose, and his ears, and his tongue; and I led him away (captive?) He was kept chained at my door; all the kingdom beheld him. Afterwards I crucified him at Agbatana. And the men who were his chief followers I slew within the citadel at Agbatana." About a century after, the Medes rose to arms again, but were finally put down by Darius Nothus. Few remains of Median art and architecture have been preserved, and the towns seem for a long time to have been unwalled. The Medes were a brave race, but cruel in their wars, for they were bent on blood and lust, as the Hebrew prophet intimates. The soldiers were in general armed like the Persians. Jeremiah describes the Median "arrows as those of a mighty expert man." The Medes were celebrated for the use of the bow, with which they fought on horseback. They were in fact a nation of mounted bowmen. Their arrows, according to an ancient writer, quoted by Eusebius, were "poisoned with a bituminous liquor, called naphtha. Thus prepared, they were shot from a slack bow, and burned the flesh with such violence, that water only increased the flame; dust alone could abate it." The same writer reports that they encouraged a breed of large dogs, to whom they used to throw the bodies of their friends, parents, and relations when at the point of death, looking upon it as dishonourable to die in their beds, or to be laid in the ground." The practice of polygamy, so inconsistent with domestic happiness, was carried by the Medes to great excess. According to Strabo, it was even enforced by law, and appears to have been allowed to the wives as well as enjoined upon the husbands. In confirming alliances, the Medes, according to Herodotus, like the Lydians (besides the ceremonies they used in common with the Greeks), were accustomed to make an incision in the arm, and to pledge one another in the mingled blood. They were evidently advanced in civilization prior to their union with the Persians. The rich colour and elegant texture of their dresses prove their early commerce and manufactures. Their own country was opulent, for it was also the great mercantile highway of Asia, and their victorious arms brought them immense tribute. The rigid and formal etiquette of their royal court is reflected in the similar Persian ceremonial. Their alphabet was simpler than that of Assyria and Babylonia. The religion was originally Zoroastrian, but degraded in course of time by Magianism, which brought a cumbrous sacerdotalism and a priestly caste into a simpler and purer creed, and established fire-worship on picturesque altars, with numerous ceremonies, oracular utterances, and mystic incantations. (See PERSIA.) of the covenant, by whom all the Divine communications were made under the several dispensations. Of the new covenant he became the surety as well as the Mediator, sealing it with his own blood; and the blessings of this covenant are now, and ever will be, bestowed in virtue of his merits and intercession. The errors and absurdities into which many are betrayed who reject this doctrine are without number. No view of the subject accords with the Divine oracles, or brings into their just relation all the parties concerned, except that which contemplates the Redeemer both in his divine and human nature. On the one hand he is identified with the infinite Jehovah, whose honour and glory are to be maintained, and whose favour is to be secured; while on the other he is the self-offered, atoning sacrifice for sin; and, as the friend of sinners, he invites them to come to him in faith and penitence, and receive the boundless blessings of God's grace, secured to them by his own prevailing intercession. The natures of the offended and of the offending parties meet in him-God's fellow and man's brother. God's glory is dear to him as God, man's interests are dear to him as Man. In all ages, and in all parts of the world, there has constantly prevailed such a sense of the holiness of the supreme Divinity, as to make recourse to some sort of mediation universal. There is not a form of religion known, even among the savages and heathen nations, which does not recognize, with more or less distinctness, the necessity of a Mediator between the Divinity and man. This fact, together with the consideration that there is nothing in the doctrine itself contrary to reason and analogy, sufficiently establishes it against the objections and cavils of scoffers and unbelievers. MED CINE. (See PHYSICIANS.) MEGIDDO (Josh. xii. 21)-a city belonging to Manasseh, but lying within the limits of Issachar, not far from the river Kishon, whose waters are hence called the "waters of Megiddo" (Judg. v. 19). Its inhabitants were not expelled by Manasseh; but when Israel became strong they were made tributary. Solomon fortified it, and made it the residence of one of his commissaries who provided stores of provision for his household (1 Ki. iv. 12; ix. 15). There, too, Ahaziah died, in consequence of a wound in battle, and Josiah was slain by Pharaoh-nechoh of Égypt (2 Ki. ix. 27; xxiii. 29). The "waters of Megiddo" (Judg. v. 21) are supposed by some to be the river Kishon. It is the present El-Lejjûn. MEDIATOR (Gal. iii. 19)-one who inter- MELCHIZEDEK-king of righteousness poses between two parties at variance, with the (Gen. xiv. 18). This mysterious person was view of effecting a reconciliation between them. king of Salem, which many suppose was afterThe title belongs pre-eminently to the Divine wards Jerusalem (though it is not improbable Redeemer, in and by whom God is reconciling that the title, "king of Salem," was a mere the world unto himself (1 Tim. ii. 5; Heb. viii. appellation, signifying king of peace). He is 6; xii. 24); and it is to be remembered that mentioned before the institution of the Aaronic he is the ONLY Mediator between God and order as a "priest of the most high God." His man. Of course our blessed Saviour has always birth and genealogy are concealed-perhaps stood in that relation, as well before as since purposely-or the phrase without father," bis manifestation in the flesh. He is the Angel | &c., may mean that his parents were of obscure or low origin. This latter notion is not probable. | is, indeed, striking and peculiar; but a little We know not that he had a predecessor or attention to Melchizedek's history, office, and successor; at any rate the time of his priesthood character sufficiently explains it. was unlimited, and in this respect different from the Levitical priesthood (Num. viii. 24, 25). The phrase, having neither beginning of days nor end of life," may apply either to the time of his birth and death being unknown, or to the indefinite term of his official life. Abraham showed his respect for the age, rank, piety, and priestly office of Melchizedek, by paying him a tithe of the spoils he had taken in the battle with Chedorlaomer and his allies, whom he pursued to Hobah; and hence the argument of the apostle, that if Abraham, whom the Jews regarded so highly, and who was the ancestor of the sons of Levi, thus acknowledged the dignity and superiority of Melchizedek, surely Christ, the great High Priest, of whom Melchizedek was but an imperfect type, was worthy of similar or still greater homage. And if the ancestor of Levi thus paid homage to Melchizedek, the type of Christ, surely the priesthood which was filled by the sons of Levi must be regarded as far inferior in dignity and excellence to the priesthood of Christ himself, (Heb. v., vi., vii.) His priesthood resembled Christ's, in its being underived and untransferred, and in its combining also the power and prerogatives of royalty. Who he was has been disputed. "The Hieracita held Melchizedek to be the Holy Spirit. "The Melchizedeciani, the author of which sect was Theodotus or Thomas, held Melchizedek to be one of the duváμsis of God, emanated from him, superior to Christ, and after the model of whom Christ was formed. "It is an ancient opinion, as Epiph. Hæres. LXVII. testifies, that Melchizedek was the Son of God-i. e., the Logos; the same who appeared to Abraham and to the patriarchs, &c. Origen, and after him Didymus, held Melchizedek to be an angel. "Others have held that Melchizedek was a man formed before the creation, out of spiritual and not of earthly matter. "Melchizedek was Enoch, sent again to live on earth after the flood. So Hen. Hulsius. "Melchizedek was Shem, the son of Noaha favourite notion. "Melchizedek was Job. So G. Kohlreis. "It is unknown who he was. So Lyser, Gesner, Baldwin, Crenius, Buddæus, and others."-Stuart's Com. on the Hebrews. These are vain suppositions-unsupported by analogy or Scripture. This priest-king was of Hamite extraction-as he was a Canaanite; and not being of the seed of Shem, his genealogy has no place in Scripture. He could not have been the Son of God in human form, as some have ingeniously maintained, for Paul could not argue that Christ had been made a type of himself. Such vitiated reasoning would only be proving a thing by itself-a species of fallacy which cannot be ascribed to an inspired author. The language MELITA (Acts xxviii. 1), now Maltaan island 12 miles in breadth and 20 in length, lying between Sicily and Africa, about 200 miles east of Tunis, and in that part of the Mediterranean which, in the apostle's day, was often called Adria, including the Ionian and Sicilian seas, according to the testimony of Ptolemy and Strabo. Here Paul and his company were shipwrecked on the passage to Rome, and were very kindly treated by the inhabitants, especially by Publius the governor. A modern traveller says,-"Passed St. Paul's harbour, where the apostle was shipwrecked. In reading the account of this shipwreck, I had ever experienced difficulty in comprehending how there could be a place formed on the coast of an island where two seas met.' But in viewing the spot pointed out where the ship was thrust in,' the difficulty was removed. The island Gozo lies west of the main island (Malta), and is separated only by a strait, from half to a quarter of a mile in width. When a violent euroclydon (east wind) prevails, and the seas run high, a powerful current is forced in at each end of this strait, which ranges nearly north and south. The ship was driven in at the north end, and struck in a small nook on the Malta side, about 40 rods from the entrance. This strait must have been, I think, 'the creek with a shore, into which they were minded, if possible, to thrust in the ship;' for, while lying off to the north, the entrance of the strait has the exact appearance of the mouth of a creek or river." A locality somewhat different has been assigned to the shipwreck by others. But the name of St. Paul's Bay has, however, been long associated with the deep bay referred to on the north side of the island, and the vessel is supposed to have struck on its western headland. A recent author has written a very ingenious and interesting book on the subjectThe Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, by Jas. Smith, Esq., of Jordanhill, 1848. Some have denied that Malta was the scene of the shipwreck, and have placed it at Meleda, a small island in the Adriatic. Bryant, Falconer, and Hales have advocated this view. There seems, however, to be no ground for their hypothesis. Malta has an unbroken tradition in its favour, and the name Adria was anciently given to the whole of the sea that rolls between Greece and Sicily. Meleda, the small islet, never seems to have been of such importance as to have a Roman Proconsul resident on it; but Malta had. Should a ship sail to the western coast of Italy from Meleda, there would be necessity for her to touch at Syracuse ere she could come to Rhegium. This island was early settled by a Phoenician colony. Since the Christian era it has belonged successively to the Goths, Vandals, Saracens, Normans, Germans, and French, until Charles V. surrendered it to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who were dispossessed by Bonaparte; and by the treaty of 1814 it was allotted to England. At present it is the centre of extensive missionary operations. MELONS (Num. xi. 5)--probably what is known to us as the water-melon, a fruit which is still found in great perfection in Egypt, and which travellers tell us furnishes the chief food and drink of the lower classes during the heat of summer. MEMPHIS. (See NOPH.) MENAHEM (2 Ki. xv. 14) was the son of Gadi, and having slain Shallum, king of Samaria, reigned in his stead. His reign, which lasted ten years, was distinguished for cruelty and oppression (2 Ki. xv. 16-20). MENE (Dan. v. 25)-a word of that significant sentence which appeared on the wall of Belshazzar's banqueting hall, to warn him of the impending destruction of Babylon. The whole sentence is in the pure Chaldee language, and reads, when translated literally, "Mene, he is numbered; Mene, he is numbered; Tekel, he is weighed; Upharsin, they are dividing." Peres, in the original language, is the same word with Upharsin, but in a different number. The words, with the exception of the last, are Chaldee passive participles. The last is active plural, with the conjunction preceding. (See BELSHAZZAR.) MEPHAATH (Josh. xiii. 18) is supposed to have been contiguous to Kedemoth, Bezer, and Jahzah (1 Chr. vi. 78, 79). In later times it was in the hands of the Moabites (Jer. xlviii. 21). And apparently it lay in the Mishorthe Belka of more modern times. MEPHIBOSHETH. 1. (2 Sam. xxi. 8) Was a son of Saul, who, with his brother and five others of the family, suffered a violent death at the hands of the Gibeonites. 2. (2 Sam. iv. 4) Or MERIBAAL (1 Chr. viii. 34), was a son of Jonathan, and grandson of Saul, who, at the age of five years, fell from his nurse's arms, and was ever after a cripple. When David was in quiet possession of his kingdom, he sought out this branch of the family of Jonathan his friend, and not only gave him an honourable place in his palace, but made ample provision for his family. The interesting history of this liberal proceeding of David is minutely related in 2 Sam. ix. By the treachery of Ziba, his steward, Mephibosheth was afterwards deprived of his estates. MERAB (1 Sam. xiv. 49)-the eldest daughter of Saul, who promised her to David in marriage; but she married Adriel of |