SCEPTRE. The Hebrew word thus rendered is LIZ#j, which in its primary signification denotes a staff of wood (Ezek. xix. it), about the height of a man, which the ancient kings and chiefs bore as an insigne of honour (Iliad, i. 234, 245; ii• 1S5, seq. ; Amos i. 5 ; Zech. x. ; Ezek. xix. ; Wisd. x. 14. Comp. Gen. xlix. ro ; Num, xxiv. 17 ; Is. xiv. 5). As such it appears to have ori ginated in the shepherd's staff, since the fii-st kings were mostly nomade princes (Strabo, xvi. 783 ; comp. Ps. xxix.) There were, however, some nations among whom the agricultural life must have been the earliest known ; and we should not among them expect to find the shepherd's staff advanced to symbolical honcur. Accordingly, Diodorus Siculus (iii. 3) informs us, that the sceptre of the Egyptian kings bore the shape of a plough— a testimony confirmed by existing monuments, in which the long staff which forms the sceptre ter minates in a form obviously intended to represent a plough.
A golden sceptre—that is, one washed or plated with gold—is mentioned in Ezek. iv. (comp. Xenoph. Cjrop. viii. 7, 13 ; Iliad, i. 15; ii. 268 ; Odyss. xi. 91). Other decorations of Oriental sceptres are noticed by Strabo (xvi. 746). Inclin ing the sceptre was a mark of kingly favour (Esth. iv. I I), and the kissing it a token of submission (Esth. v. 2). Saul appears to have carried his javelin as a mark of superiority (I Sam. xviii. ro ; xxii. 6).—J. K.
SCEVA (7..xeuas), a Jew resident at Ephesus at the time of St. Paul's second visit, and described as 'high-priest' either from his having held that office, or from his being chief of one of the twenty four courses of priests (Acts xix. 14-16).—W. L. A.