IBZAN.

IBZAN (YN, illustrious; Sept. 'Aßaioσáv), the tenth 'judge of Israel.' He was of Bethlebem, probably the Bethlehem of Zebulun and not of Judah. He governed seven years. The prosperity of Ibzan is marked by the great number of his children (thirty sons and thirty daughters), and his wealth by their marriages-for they were all married. Some have held, with little probability, that Ibzan was the same with Boaz; B.C. 1182 (Judg. xii. 8. ).

I-CHABOD (722 'N, where is the glory; Sept. 'AxiTB), son of Phinehas and grandson of Eli. He is only known from the unhappy circumstances of his birth, which occasioned this name to be given to him. The pains of labour came upon bis mother when she heard that the ark of God was taken, that her husband was slain in battle, and that these tidings had proved fatal to his father Eli. They were death-pains to her; and when those around sought to cheer her, saying, 'Fear not, for thou hast borne a son,' she only answered by giving him the name of Ichabod, saying, 'The glory is departed from Israel' (1 Sam. iv. 19-22); B.C. 1141. The name again occurs in 1 Sam. xiv. 3 [ELI].

ICONIUM (IKÓPIOv), a town, formerly the capital of Lycaonia, as it is now, by the name of Konieh, of Karamania, in Asia Minor. It is situated in N. lat. 37° 51′, E. long. 32° 40', about one hundred and twenty miles inland from the Mediterranean. It was visited by St. Paul in A.D. 45, when many Gentiles were converted; but some unbelieving Jews excited against him and Barnabas, a persecution, which they escaped with difficulty (Acts xiii. 51; xiv. 1, &c.). He undertook a second journey to Iconium in A.D. 51. The church planted at this place by the apostle continued to flourish, until, by the persecutions of the Saracens, and afterwards of the Seljukians, who made it one of their sultanies, it was nearly extinguished. But some Christians of the Greek and Armenian churches, with a Greek metropolitan bishop, are still found in the suburbs of the city, not being permitted to reside within the walls.

Konieh is situated at the foot of Mount Taurus, upon the border of the lake Trogolis, in a fertile plain, rich in valuable productions, particularly apricots, wine, cotton, flax, and grain. The circumference of the town is between

VOL. II.

IDDO.

two and three miles, beyond which are suburbs not much less populous than the town itself. The walls, strong and lofty, and flanked with square towers, which, at the gates, are placed close together [see cut, No. 317], were built by the Seljukian Sultans of Iconíum, who seem to have taken considerable pains to exhibit the Greek inscriptions, and the remains of architecture and sculpture, belonging to the ancient Iconium, which they made use of in building the walls. The town, suburbs, and gardens, are plentifully supplied with water from streams which flow from some hills to the westward, and which, in the north-east, join the lake, which varies in size with the season of the year. In the town carpets are manufactured, and blue and yellow leathers are tanned and dried. Cotton, wool, hides, and a few of the other raw productions which enrich the superior industry and skill of the manufacturers of Europe, are sent to Smyrna by caravans.

The most remarkable building in Konieh is the tomb of a priest highly revered throughout Turkey, called Hazreet Mevlana, the founder of the Mevlevi Dervishes. The city, like all those renowned for superior sanctity, abounds with dervishes, who meet the passenger at every turning of the streets, and demand paras with the The bazaars greatest clamour and insolence. and houses have little to recommend them to notice (Kinneir's Travels in Asia Minor; Leake's Geography of Asia Minor; Arundell's Tour in Asia Minor).

1. IDDO (1, seasonable; Sept.'Addά), a prophet of Judah, who wrote the history of Rehoboam and Abijah; or rather perhaps who, in conjunction with Seraiah, kept the public rolls during their reigns. It seems by 2 Chron. xiii. 22 that he named his book T, Midrash, or 'Exposition.' Josephus (Antiq. viii. 9. 1) states that this Iddo was the prophet who was sent to Jeroboam at Bethel, and consequently the same who was slain by a lion for disobedience to his instructions (1 Kings xiii.); and many commentators have followed this statement.

riah (Zech. i. I; Ezr. v. 1; vi. 14). 2. IDDO, grandfather of the prophet Zecha

3. IDDO (1), chief of the Jews of the captivity established at Casiphia, a place of which it is difficult to determine the position. It was to

B

him that Ezra sent a requisition for Levites and Nethinim, none of whom had yet joined his caravan. Thirty-eight Levites and 250 Nethinim responded to his call (Ezra viii. 17-20), B.C. 457. It would seem from this that Iddo was a chief person of the Nethinim, descended from those Gibeonites who were charged with the servile labours of the tabernacle and temple. This is one of several circumstances which indicate that the Jews in their several colonies under the Exile were still ruled by the heads of their nation, and allowed the free exercise of their worship.

4. IDDO (17, lovely; Sept. 'ladat), a chief of the half tribe of Manasseh beyond the Jordan (1 Chron. xxvii. 21).

IDLE. The ordinary uses of this word require no illustration. But the very serious passage in Matt. xii. 36 may suitably be noticed in this place. In the Authorized Version it is translated, I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment." The original is, Οτι πᾶν ῥῆμα ἀργόν, ὃ ἐὰν λαλήσωσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ἀποδώσουσι περὶ αὐτοῦ λόγον ἐν ἡμέρᾳ κρίσεως. The whole question depends upon the meaning or rather force of the term sua dpyóv, rendered idle word,' concerning which there has been no little difference of opinion. Many understand it to mean wicked and injurious words,' as if ȧpyóv were the same as Tovnρóv, which is indeed found as a gloss in Cod. 126. The sense is there taken to be as follows:'Believe me, that for every wicked and injurious word men shall hereafter render an account.' And our Lord is supposed to have intended in this passage to reprehend the Pharisees, who had spoken impiously against Him, and to threaten them with the severest punishments; inasmuch as every one of their injurious and impious words should one day be judged. This interpretation of the word dpyóv is, however, reached by a somewhat circuitous process of philological reasoning, which is examined with much nicety by J. A. H. Tittmann, and shown to be untenable. He adds: This interpretation, moreover, would not be in accordance with what precedes in verses 33-35, nor with what follows in verse 37. For it is not any wicked discourse which is there represented; but the feigned piety of the Pharisees, and their affected zeal for the public welfare. In order to avoid a charge of levity and indifference, they had demanded "a sign," σnueîov; as if desirous that both they and others might know whether Jesus was truly the Messiah. Against this dissimulation in those who uttered nothing sincerely and from the heart, Jesus had inveighed in severe and appropriate terms in verses 33-35, using the comparison of a tree, which no one judges to be good and useful unless it bears good fruit, and from which, if it be bad, no one expects good fruit. But if now the sense of verse 36 is such as these interpreters would make it, there is added in it a sentiment altogether foreign to what precedes, and άpyóv becomes not only destitute of effect and force, but involves a sentiment incongruous with that in verse 37. For where our Lord says that hereafter every one shall be judged according to his words, He cannot be understood to mean that every one will be capable of prov

ing his integrity and goodness merely by His words alone-a sentiment surely as far as possible from the intention of our Divine Master. We must, therefore, necessarily understand a certain kind of words or discourse, which, under the appearance of sincerity or candour, is often the worst possible, and καταδικάζει τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “ condemns a man," because it is uttered with an evil purpose. If, then, we interpret apyóv according to established Greek usage, there arises a natural and very appropriate sense, namely, ȧpyóv is the same as hepyov, otiosus, vain, idle; then, void of effect, without result, followed by no correTherefore ῥῆμα αργόν is empty sponding event. or vain words or discourse, i. e. void of truth, and to which the event does not correspond. In short, it is the empty, inconsiderate, insincere language of one who says one thing and means another; and in this sense àpyós is very frequently employed by the Greeks. This Tittmann confirms by a number of citations; and then deduces from the whole that the sense of the passage under review is: Believe me, he who uses false and insincere language shall suffer grievous punishment: your words, if uttered with sincerity and ingenuousness, shall be approved; but if they are dissembled, although they bear the strongest appearance of sincerity, they shall be condemned' (See Tittmann, On the Principal Causes of Forced Interpretations of the New Testament, in Am. Bib. Repository for 1831, pp. 481-484).

IDOLATRY. In giving a summary view of the forms of idolatry which are mentioned in the Bible, it is expedient to exclude all notice of those illegal images which were indeed designed to bear some symbolical reference to the worship of the true God, but which partook of the nature of idolatry; such, for example, as the golden calf of Aaron (cf. Neh. ix. 18); those of Jeroboam; the singular ephods of Gideon and Micah (Judg. viii. 27; xvii. 5); and the Teraphim.

Idolatry was the most heinous offence against the Mosaic law, which is most particular in defining the acts which constitute the crime, and severe in apportioning the punishment. Thus, it is forbidden to make any image of a strange God; to prostrate oneself before such an image, or before those natural objects which were also worshipped without images, as the sun and moon (Deut. iv. 19); to suffer the altars, images, or groves of idols to stand (Exod. xxxiv. 13); or to keep the gold and silver of which their images were made, and to suffer it to enter the house (Deut. vii. 25, 26); to sacrifice to idols, most especially to offer human sacrifices; to eat of the victims offered to idols by others; to prophesy in the name of a strange god; and to adopt any of the rites used in idolatrous worship, and to transfer them to the worship of the Lord (Deut. xii. 30, 31). As for punishment, the law orders that if an individual committed idolatry he should be stoned to death (Deut. xvii. 2-5); that if a town was guilty of this sin, its inhabitants and cattle should be slain, and its spoils burnt together with the town itself (Deut. xiii. 12-18). To what degree also the whole spirit of the Old Testament is abhorrent from idolatry, is evident (besides legal prohibitions, prophetic denunciations, and energetic appeals like that in Isa. xliv. 9-20) from the literal sense of the terms which are used as synonymes for idols and

sun, moon, and planets, is blended with the worship of the god in the form of an idol, and with the addition of a mythology (as may be seen in the relations of Baal and his cognates to the sun), easily degenerates into lasciviousness and cruel rites.

The images of the gods, the standard terms for

were, as to ,צלם and ,עצב מצבה which are

material, of stone, wood, silver, and gold. The first two sorts are called D, as being hewn or carved; those of metal had a trunk or stock of wood, and were covered with plates of silver or gold (Jer. x. 4); or were cast (DD). The general rites of idolatrous worship consist in burning incense; in offering bloodless sacrifices, as the dough-cakes (D) and libations in Jer. vii. 18, and the raisin-cakes (DUN) in Hos. iii. 1; in sacrificing victims (1 Kings xviii. 26), and especially in human sacrifices [MOLOCH]. These offerings were made on high places, hills, and roofs of houses, or in shady groves and valleys. Some forms of idolatrous worship had libidinous orgies [ASHTORETH]. Divinations, oracles (2 Kings i. 2), and rabdomancy (Hos. iv. 12) form a part of many of these false religions. The priesthood was generally a numerous body; and where persons of both sexes were attached to the service of any god (like the

of Ashtoreth), that service קדשות and קדשים

was infamously immoral. It is remarkable that the Pentateuch makes no mention of any temple of idols; afterwards we read often of such.J. N. IDUMÆA. 'Idovuaía is the Greek form of the Hebrew name ЕDOM, or, according to Josephus (Antiq. ii. 1. 1), it is only a more agreeable mode of pronouncing what would otherwise be 'Adua (comp. Jerome on Ezek. xxv. 12). In the Septuagint we sometimes meet with 'Edu, but more generally with 'Idovuaía (the people being called 'Idovμaîoi), which is the uniform orthography in the Apocrypha as well as in Mark iii. 8, the only passage in the New Testament where it occurs. Our Authorized Version has in three or four places substituted for Edom Idumea,' which is the name employed by the writers of Greece and Rome, though it is to be noted that they, as well as Josephus, include under that name the south of Palestine, and sometimes Palestine itself, because a large portion of that country came into possession of the Edomites of later times.

The Hebrew N Edom, as the name of the people is masculine (Num. xx. 22); as the name of the country, feminine (Jer. xlix. 17). We often meet with the phrase Eretz - Edom, the Land of Edom,' and once with the poetic form Sedeh-Edom, the Field of Edom' (Judg. v. 4). The inhabitants are sometimes styled Beni-Edom, 'the Children of Edom,' and poetically BathEdom, the Daughter of Edom' (Lam. iv. 21, 22). A single person was called 7 Adomi, 'an Edomite' (Deut. xxiii. 8), of which the feminine plural TN Adomith occurs in 1 Kings xi. 1. The name was derived from Isaac's son Edom, otherwise called Esau, the elder twinbrother of Jacob [ESAU]. It signifies red, and seems first to have been suggested by his appearance at his birth, when he came out all red' (i. e. covered with red hair, Gen. xxv. 25), and

was afterwards more formally and permanently imposed on him on account of his unworthy disposal of his birth-right for a mess of red lentiles (Gen. xxv. 30). The region which came to bear his name, is the mountainous tract on the east side of the great valleys El Ghor and El Araba, extending between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea. Some have conjectured that the latter sea was called Red, because it washed the shore of Edom ;' but it never bears in Hebrew the name of Yam-Edom: it is uniformly designated Yam-Suph, i. e. the Sea of Madrepores. Into this district Esau removed during his father's life-time, and his posterity gradually obtained possession of it as the country which God had assigned for their inheritance in the prophetic blessing pronounced by his father Isaac (Gen. xxvii. 39, 40; xxxii. 3; Deut. ii. 5-12, 22). Previously to their occupation of the country, it was called y, Mount Seir, a designation indeed which it never entirely lost. The word seir means hairy (being thus synonymous with Esau), and, when applied to a country, may signify rugged, mountainous, and so says Josephus (Antiq. i. 20. 3): Esau named the country

"Roughness" from his own hairy roughness.' But in Gen. xxxvi. 20, we read of an individual of the name of Seir, who had before this inhabited the land, and from whom it may have received its first appellation. Part of the region is still called Esh-Sherah, in which some find a trace of Seir, but the two words have no etymological relation the former wants the y, a letter which is never dropped, and it signifies a tract, a possession,' and sometimes a mountain."

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The first mention made of Mount Seir in Scripture is in Gen. xiv. 6, where Chedorlaomer and his confederates are said to have smitten 'the Horim in their Mount Seir.' Among the earliest human habitations were caves, either formed by nature or easily excavated, and for the construction of these the mountains of Edom afforded peculiar facilities. Hence the designation given to the Aboriginal inhabitants-Horim, i. e. cavedwellers (from ", a cave'), an epithet of similar import with the Greek Troglodytes. Even in the days of Jerome the whole of the southern part of Idumæa, from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Aila, was full of caverns used as dwellings, on account of the sun's excessive heat' (Jerome on Obadiah, ver. 1); and there is reason to believe that the possessors of the country in every age occupied similar habitations, many traces of which are yet seen in and near Petra, the renowned metropolis.

We are informed in Deut. ii. 12, that the children of Esau succeeded [marg. inherited] the Horim when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead, as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which Jehovah gave unto them.' From this it may be inferred, that the extirpation of the Horim by the Esauites was, like that of the Canaanites by Israel, very gradual and slow. Some think this supposition is confirmed by the genealogical tables preserved in the 36th chapter of Genesis (comp. 1 Chron. 1.), where we have, along with a list of the chiefs of Edom, a similar catalogue of Horite chieftains, who are presumed to have been their contemporaries. But for the chronology of these ancient documents we possess no data whatsoever, and very precarious, therefore, must be