JAIR Jehovah enlightens ; "Iatp; t. A descendant of Manasseh by his grandmother, and of Judah by his grandfather. His grand mother was probably an heiress, and therefore Jair was reckoned to the tribe of Manasseh (t Chron. 5, 22, 23). When the Israelites en. tered Eastern Palestine, Jair led an expedition against a part of Northern Gilead, and having taken a number of its towns, called them HavotR .7a r' (` the towns of Jair,' Num. xxxii. 41). He subsequently conquered the province of Argob in Bashan, with its threescore great cities,' and called it Eashan-Havolh-Yair, to distinguish it from the province previously occupied in Gilead (Deut. 14). Most writers have confounded these two territories ; but in Josh. xiii. 3o, Kings iv. 13, and Chron. ii. 22, 23, they are clearly distinguished from each other (AuGou ; HAVOTH jAIR ; Porter's Damascus, ii. 268, seq.) 2. One of the judges of Israel, doubtless a de scendant of the former, who had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead' (Judg. x. 3, 4).— J. L. P.
JAIRITE (4-1Nri ; Sept. ; Alex. (1 'laetpel), a designation applied to Ira, one of David's officers (2 Sam. xx. 26). The word must
be regarded as a patronymic from Jair ; but such a mode of designating an individual is unusual, the more common method being to describe him from his place of nativity. This draws attention to the reading of the Syriac Vers. d'nzen 7athir, 'of Jathir ;' from which it may be inferred that probably the original reading was r-Irrri, Ha Yathzri, 'The Jathirite,' or Ithrite.' In this case the Ira of 2 Sam. xx. 26 is the same as the Ira of 2 Sam. xxiii. 38 and Chron. xi. 4o. In the first of these passages he is farther described as -11-6 Cohen l' David, 'a chief ruler about David,' A. V. Cohen is here used, as in viii. 18, in its primary sense of a servant in a position of trust ana' lzmzour ; if of God a priest, if of an earthly sovereign a minister (Kimchi, Fiirst). Ira may have been private secretary or annalist to David (Thenius, in /oc.) The notion of Gesenius and others that the palatial cohenim were house chap lains of the king not of Aaronic descent, is purely conjectural and altogether improbable.—W. L. A.