ADAMI (Heb. ad-ow-met', earthy, Josh. xix .33), a place in Palestine. near the border of Naphtah. Rosenmtiller, Keil and others join Adami with the following name ticket). Keil renders the two "Adami of the liars ." The site is probably at the present village Ed-D,imieh on the plateau northeast of Tabor, where the basaltic soil is reddish. The site of ticket) (Sciyddeh) is not far off.
ADAR (a'dar), (lleb. ad-awr, Esth.
the Macedonian .16rrpol), is the sixth month of the civil and the twelfth of the ecclesiastical year of the Jews. The name was first introduced after the Captivity. 1 he following are the chief days in it which are set apart for commemoration: (1) Death of Noses. The seventh is a fast for the death of Moses (Dent. xxxiv:5, 6). There is some difference, however, in the date assigned to his death by some ancient authorities. Josephus (Antiq. iv:8) states that he died on first of this month; which also agrees with Midrash Megillath Esther, cited by Reland (Antiq. Hebr. iv :10) : whereas the Talniudica) tracts, Kiddushim and Sota, give the seventh as the day. It is at least certain that the latter was the day on which the fast was observed.
(2) Hillel and Shammai. On the 0th there was a fast in memory of the contention or open rupture of the celebrated schools of Hillel and Shammai, which happened but a few years before the birth of Christ. The cause of the dispute is obscure (Wolf's Biblioth. Hebr. :826).
(3) Fast of Esther. " he 13th is the so-called 'Fast of Esther.' Iken observes (Antiq. Ilebr. p. 150) that this was not an actual fast, but merely a commemoration of Esther's fast of three days (Esth. iv:16), and a preparation for the ensu
ing festival. Nevertheless, as Esther appears, from the date of Haman's edict, and from the course of the narrative, to have fasted in Nisan, Buxtorf adduces from the Rabbins the following account of the name of this fast, and of the foundation of its observance in Adar (Synog. Jud. p. 554) : That the Jews assembled together on the 13th, in the time of Esther, and that, after the example of Moses, who fasted when the Israelites were about to engage in battle with the Amalekites, they devoted that day to fast ing and prayer, in preparation for the perilous trial which awaited them on the morrow. In this sense this fast would stand in the most direct relation to the feast of Purim. The t3th was also, 'by a common decree,' appointed as a festi val in memory of the death of Nicanor (2 Mace. xv :36).
(4) Feast of Purim. The t4th and 15th were devoted to the feast of Purim (Estli. ix :2t ). In case the year was an intercalary one, when the month of Adar occurred twice. this feast was first moderately observed in the inter calary Adar, and then celebrated with full splen dor in the ensuing Adar. The former of these two celebrations was then called the lesser, and the latter the great Purim. These designations do not apply, as Horne has erroneously stated (Introduction iii:177), to the two days of the festival in an ordinary year, but to its double celebration in an intercalary year.—J. N. (See