But in by far the majority of passages, the cup is a cup of astonishment,' a cup of the full red flaming wine-cup of God's wrath and retributive indignation (Ps. lxxv. 8 ; Is. li. xvii ; Jer. xxv. 15 ; Lam. iv. 21 ; Ezek. xxiii. 32 ; Zed]. xii. 2 ; Rev. xvi. 19, etc.) There is, in fact, in the prophets, no more frequent or terrific image ; and it is repeated with pathetic force in the lan guage of our Lord's agony (Matt. xxvi. 39, 42 John xviii. 11 ; Mark x. 38). God is here repre sented as the master of a banquet, dealing the madness and stupor of vengeance to guilty guests (Vitringa in Is. li. 17 ; Wichmannshausen De ine et tremoris Calice, in Thes. Nov. Theol. Philol. i. 906, sq.) The cup thus became an obvious sym bol of Death (rorhpicv . . amccalpec xai Tdv Oa, parse. Etym. M.) ; and hence the oriental phrase, to 'taste of death,' so common in the N. T. (Matt. xvi. 28 ; Mark ix. r ; John viii. 52 ; Heb. ii. 9), in the rabbis (Schoettgen, Hor. Hebr. in Matt. xvi.), in the Arabian poem Antar, and among the Per sians (Schleusner, Lex N. T., s. v. 7oriipeov ; Jahn, Arclz. Bibl. sec. 203). The custom of giving
a cup of wine and myrrh to condemned criminals (Otho, Lex. Rabb. s. v. Mors) is alluded to in Matt. xxvii. 34 ; Mark xv. 22.
Finally, we may notice Joseph's cup of divina tion, Gen. xliv. 5. The various attempts made by Parkhurst and others to explain away this verse by translating it in accordance with preconceived preju dices, belongs to that idle and exploded method of biblical criticism which has so much obscured our knowledge of Scripture. Undoubtedly it was a cup of supposed magic properties by which Joseph (deeply stained with Egyptian customs) pretended to divine Es cd,r43, LXX. ; in quo augu rari solet, Vulg.) ; twXmoilavrcia, an attempt to discover the future from the radiation of water, or by sounds coming out of it, is a universal supersti tion, and was well known in Egypt ; and, in hav ing a royal divining-cup, Joseph only imitated other rulers. ii6vau, the word here used by the LXX., occurs in Hipparchus, ap. Athen, 478, A, and is curiously, like the Indian kundi, a sacred Indian cup (Bohlen on Gas., p. 403 ; Kalisch, p. F. W. F.