'AGUR evp. This word occurs Is. xxxviii 14 and Jer. viii. 7; in both cases in connection with MD, but in the latter the two words are connected by the copulative 1, while in the former this is wanting. In the A. V. it is translated swallow in both places, while tnl: is translated crane. Bo chart, however, reverses this, and maintains that 'Agur is the proper Hebrew designation of the crane. He compares the word with the Chald.
kurkeya, the Arab. ,_„5) kurki, the Gr.
ylpaPas, the Welsh Baran, and the Germ. kran, all of which are like it onomatopoetic. In Is. xxxviii. 14 the 'Agur is a bird that utters a twitter ing or querulous sound (IMV), and in Jer. viii. 7 it is ranked with migratory birds. Both these characteristics meet in the crane; its cry is often compared by the poets with that of a person in dis tress or grief, and its migratory habits are frequently dwelt upon by ancient writers (see the passages collected on both points by Bochart). This view has been followed by Rosenmiiller, Maurer, and Henderson, in their comments on Isaiah, and by Winer (R. IV. B. on Schwalbe). Gesenius, though seeming to favour this view in his commentary on Isaiah, repudiates it in his Thesaurus, where he treats 'Aver as a verbal adjective signifying chatter ing or twittering, and regards it as an epithet of the swallow in the passage in Isaiah, and as a designation of the swallow in that in Jeremiah. This is followed by Knobel (D. Pr. les. verklart). It is in favour of this, that in the former the copu lative is wanting between the two words; but this may be explained as a case of asyndeton (as in Hos. vi. 3; Hab. iii. t r, etc.); whereas the inser tion of the 1 in the other passage seems clearly to prove that 'Agur and Sus denote different birds. Hitzig, indeed, proposes to strike out this copula, but without sufficient reason. Maurer derives from Arab. je. turbavit aquam, so as to designate an aquatic bird; Knobel would trace it to to mourn piteously.—W. L. A.
AH (r1N, brother) or rather Acx, is frequently found, according to the inadequate representation of the guttural which is followed hi our version, as the first syllable of compound Hebrew proper names. The observations already offered in the article AB may be referred to for some illustration of the metaphorical use of the term brother in such combinations, as well as for the law of their construction, whenever the two members are nouns of which one is dependent as a genitive on the other.—J. N.
AHAB (mFIrt, father's brother; Sept 'Axarlfib I. The son of Omri, and the seventh king of Israel, who reigned twenty-two years, from B.C. 918 to 897. Ahab was, upon the whole, the weakest of all the Israelitish monarchs ; and although there are occasional traits of character which shew that he was not without good feelings and dispositions, the history of his reign proves that weakness of character in a king may sometimes be as injurious in its effects as wickedness. Many of the evils of
his reign may be ascribed to the close connection which he formed with the Phoenicians. There had long been a beneficial commercial intercourse be tween that people and the Jews ; and the relations arising thence were very close in tbe times of David and Solomon. After the separation of the kingdoms, the connection appears to have been continued by the nearer kingdom of Israel, but to have been nearly, if not quite, abandoned by that of Judah. The wife of Ahab was Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, or Ithobaal, king of Tyre. She was a woman of a decided and energetic cha racter, and, as such, soon established that influ ence over her husband which such women always acquire over weak, and not unfrequently also over strong, men. Ahab, being entirely under the con trol of Jezebel, sanctioned the introduction, and eventually established the worship of the Phoenician idols, and especially of the sun-god Baal. Hitherto the golden calves in Dan and Bethel had been the only objects of idolatrous worship in Israel, and they were intended as symbols of JEHOVAH. But all reserve and limitation were now abandoned.
The king built a temple at Samaria, and erected an image, and consecrated a grove to Baal. A multitude of the priests and prophets of Baal were maintained. Idolatry became the predominant religion ; and Jehovah, with the golden calves as symbolical representations of him, were viewed with no more reverence than Baal and his image. So strong was the tide of corruption, that it ap peared as if the knowledge of the true God was soon to be for ever lost among the Israelites. At length the judgment of God on Ahab and his house was pronounced by Elijah, who announced that, during the reign of his son, his whole race should be exterminated. Ahab died of the wounds which he received in a battle with the Syrians, according to a prediction of Micaiah, which the king disbelieved, but yet endeavoured to avert by disguising himself in the action (I Kings xvi. 29 ; XX11. 40).
2. A false prophet, who, in conjunction with Zedekiah, deceived the Israelites at Babylon. For this they were threatened by Jeremiah, who fore told that they should be put to death by the king of Babylon in the presence of those whom they had beguiled; and that in following times it should become a common malediction to say, The Lord make thee like Ahab and Zedekiah whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire' (Jer. xxix. 21, 22). J. K.