DUNCAN, ?ROBERT, born 1699, and ordained minister of the parish of Tillicoultry 1728, where he died in the following year. His Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews was published in 1731. It is a simple but useful work, consisting of a running comment, never at any great length, on the whole epistle, verse by verse. He follows very much in the wake of Owen, and may be said to possess three excellences as a commentator ;—his views are sound and judicious, his diction is perspicuous and correct, and the comment, in respect of amount, is well-proportioned to the importance of the pas sages expounded.—W. H. G.
DUNG. [This word represents several words in the original.—i. and properly a ball or o roll; used of a heap of of dung generally (Zeph. excrement specially (Job )1.?;1, used properly of manure (2 Kings ix. 37 ; Ps. lxxxiii. I 1 ; Jer. viii. 2 ; ix. 22). 3. used only in the plu ral, and only of the human excrement (2 Kings xviii. 27 ; Is. xxxvi. 12). 4. properly sweepings (Sept. xorpla, Is. v. 25). 5.
used only of the unvoided dung of the sacrifices (Exod. xxix. 14 ; Ley. iv. II ; viii. 17 ; Num.
xix. 5 ; Mal. ii. 3). 6. used only in the plural from MU, to thrust out used of cow's dung (Ez. iv. 15). 7. 1`..,KopaXa S), properly refuse (see Gataker, Advers. Afiscell. ch. 43). The third of these terms seems to have become offensive to the Jews, as in the places where it occurs, there is a K'ri substituting a more refined expression.] Among the Israelites, as with the modern Ori entals, dung was used both for manure and for fuel. In a district where wood is scarce, dung is so valuable for the latter purpose, that little of it is spared for the former.
[In preparing the dung for manure, it was col lected in heaps, and straw seems to have been trodden amongst the more liquid portions of it for the purpose of absorbing the liquid (Is. xxv. to, where r]rM1rI ”nn means, `in the water of (i.e., flowing from) the dung heap'). Heaps of manure seem also to have been formed outside the gate of the town or city (comp. the dung-gate of Jerusa lem, Neh. ii. 13), composed probably of the sweepings of the streets, and the refuse of the houses.] Some of the regulations connected with this use of dung we learn from the Talmud. The roll of dung, from dung (1 Kings xiv. ro) ; i. 17); of the human xx. 7 ; Ez. iv. 12).
heaping up of a dunghill in a public place exposed the owner to the repair of any damage it might occasion, and any one was at liberty to take it away (Bava-kama, i. 3. 3). Another regulation
forbade the accumulation of the dung-hill to be removed, in the seventh or sabbatic year, to the vicinity of any ground under culture (Sabb.iii. I), which was equivalent to an interdiction of the use of manure in that year ; and this must have occa sioned some increase of labour in the year ensuing.
The use of dung for fuel is collected incidentally from the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel, being commanded, as a symbolical action, to bake his bread with human dung, excuses himself from the use of an unclean thing, and is permitted to employ cows' dung instead (Ezek. iv. 12-15). This shews that the dung of animals, at least of clean animals, was usual, and that no ideas of ceremonial uncleanness were attached to its em ployment for this purpose. The use of cow-dung for fuel is known to our own villagers, who, at least in the west of England, prefer it in baking their bread ' under the crock,' on account of the long-continued and equable heat which it main tains. It is there also not unusual in a summer evening to see aged people traversing the green lanes with baskets to collect the cakes of cow dung which have dried upon the road. This helps out the ordinary fire of wood, and makes it burn longer. In many thinly-wooded parts of south western Asia the dung of cows, camels, horses, asses, whichever may happen to be the most com mon, is collected with great zeal and diligence from the streets and highways, chiefly by young girls. They also hover on the skirts of the en campments of travellers, and there are often amus ing scrambles among them for the droppings of the cattle. The dung is mixed up with chopped straw, and made into cakes, which are stuck up by their own adhesiveness against the walls of the cottages, or are laid upon the declivity of a hill, until suffi ciently dried. It is not unusual to see a whole village with its walls thus garnished, which has a singular and not very agreeable appearance to a European traveller. Towards the end of autumn, the result of the summer collection of fuel for win ter is shewn in large conical heaps or stacks of dried dung upon the top of every cottage. The usages of the Jews in this matter were probably similar in kind, although the extent to which they prevailed cannot now be estimated.—J. K.