EARNEST. is evidently the Hebrew in Greek characters. With a slight altera tion in the letters, but with none whatever in the sense, it becomes the Latin arrhabo, contr. arrha ; French arses; English earles and earnest. These three words occur in the Hebrew, Septuagint, and Vulgate in Gen. xxxviii. 17, 18, and in ver. 20, with the exception that the Vulgate there changes it to pignus. The use of these words in this pas sage clearly illustrates their general import, which is, that of an earnest or pledge, given and received, to assure the fulfilment of an engagement. Hesy chius explains ileincl3Wv by irpoSop.a, somewhat given beforehand. This idea attaches to all the particular applications of the word, as anything given by way of warrant or security for the per formance of a promise, part of a debt paid as an assurance of paying the remainder, part of the price of anything paid beforehand to confirm the bargain between buyer and seller, part of a servant's wages paid at the time of hiring for the purpose of ratifying the engagement on both sides. The idea that the earnest is either to be returned upon the fulfilment of the engagement, or to be considered as part of the stipulation, is also included. The word is used
three times in the N. T., but always in a figlirative sense ; in the first (2 Cor. i. 22), it is applied to the pits of the Holy Spirit, which God bestowed upon the apostles, and by which He might be said to have hired them to be the servants of his Son, and which were the earnest, assurance, and commencement of those far superior blessings which He would be stow on them in the life to come as the wages of their faithful services ; in the two latter (2 Cor. v. 5; Eph. 13, 14), it is applied to the gifts be stowed on Christians generally, upon whom, after baptism, the Apostles had laid their hands, and which were to them an earnest of obtaining an heavenly habitation and inheritance, upon the sup position of their fidelity. This use of the term finely illustrates the augmented powers and addi tional capacities promised in a future state. Jerome, in his comment on the second passage exclaims, Si arrhabo tantus, quanta erit possessio ; If the earnest was so great, how great must be the pos session.' See Kypke, Macknight, and Middleton on these passages. Le Moyne, Not. ad Var. Sacr., pp. 460-80.—J. F. D.