KESITAH (rIty'Vp). The meaning and deri vation of this word, which only occurs thrice in the O. T., has been a subject of much controversy. The places where it is found—Gen. xxxiii. 19, re cording Jacob's purchase of a piece of ground at Shechem ; Josh. xxiv. 32, a verbal repetition from Genesis ; and Job xlii. I, where the presents made to Job by his friends are specified and it is joined with rings of gold—indicate either the name of a coin, or of some article used in barter. The prin. cipal explanations of the word are 1. That of the LXX., and all ancient versions, which render it a Iamb,' either the animal itself, or a coin bearing its impress (Hottinger, Dirs. eh Nanzni. Orient.), a view which has been revived in modern times by the Danish Bishop Munter in a treatise published at Copenhagen 1824, and more recently still by Mr. James Yates, Proc. of NW/14FM. SOC., 1837-8, p. iv. The entire want of any ety mological ground for this interpretation has led Bochart (Hierozoic, 2, C. 3) to imagine that there bad been a confusion in the text of the LXX. between 4nar6v /..cvOn, and Jna.r2n, dav@v, and that this error has passed into all the ancient ver sions, which may be supported by the singular fact that in Gen. xxxi. 7, 41, we find nio rinyy (A. V.
ten times,' run however more usually standing for a particular weight) translated by the LXX. Mca cip,r,63y, which it is difficult to account for on any supposition save that of a mistake of the copyist for ,umlw.
2. Others, adopting tbe rendering lamb,' have imagined a reference to a weight formed in the shape of that animal, such as we know to have been in use among tbe Egyptians and Assyrians, imitating bulls, antelopes, geese, etc. (see Wil
kinson's Anc. Egypt., ii. 1o; Layard, Ninev. and Babyl., pp. 600-6o2 ; Lepsius, Denkm. iii. plate 392 '1\10. 3) 3. Faber, in the German edition of Banner's Obs., th. ii., pp. 15-19, quoted by Gesenius, con nects it with the Syriac 1..40,1D, Heb. 1117p, a vessel,' an etymology accepted by Grotefend, via'e inf., and considers it to have been either a measure or a silver vessel used in barter, cf. zElian, V. /.1., i. 22.
4- Tbe most probable view, however, is that sup ported by Gesenius, Rosenmfiller, Jahn, Kalisch, and the majority of the soundest interpreters, that it vvas, in Grotefend's words (Num; sm. Chron., vol.
p. 24S), merely a silver weight of undetermined size, just as the most ancient shekel was nothing more than a piece of rough silver without any image or device.' The lost root was perhaps akin to the Arabic he divided equally.' Bo chart, however (u.s.), is disposed to alter the tuation of the Shin, and to connect the word with Uuip, truth,' adding potuit r'p id est vera dici moneta qumcunque habuit justum pondus, aut etiam moneta sincera et drci13300s.' According to Rabbi Akiba, quoted by Bochart, a certain coin bore this name in comparatively modern times ; so that he would render the word by +pn, Sdvanes.—E. V.