- ATER shut; lame. (1.) Ezra 2:16. (2.) Nehemiah 10:17. (3.) Ezra 2:42.
- ATHALIAH whom God afflicts. (1.) The daughter of Ahab and Jezebel,
and the wife of Jehoram, king of Judah (2 Kings 8:18), who “walked in the
ways of the house of Ahab” (2 Chronicles 21:6), called “daughter” of Omri
(2 Kings 8:26). On the death of her husband and of her son Ahaziah, she
resolved to seat herself on the vacant throne. She slew all Ahaziah’s
children except Joash, the youngest (2 Kings 11:1,2). After a reign of six
years she was put to death in an insurrection (2 Kings 11:20; 2 Chronicles
21:6; 22:10-12; 23:15), stirred up among the people in connection with
Josiah’s being crowned as king.
(2.) Ezra 8:7. (3.) 1 Chronicles 8:26.
- ATHENS the capital of Attica, the most celebrated city of the ancient
world, the seat of Greek literature and art during the golden period of
Grecian history. Its inhabitants were fond of novelty (Acts 17:21), and
were remarkable for their zeal in the worship of the gods. It was a sarcastic
saying of the Roman satirist that it was “easier to find a God at Athens
than a man.”
On his second missionary journey Paul visited this city (Acts 17:15;
comp. 1 Thessalonians 3:1), and delivered in the Areopagus his famous
speech (17:22-31). The altar of which Paul there speaks as dedicated “to
the [properly “an”] unknown God” (23) was probably one of several
which bore the same inscription. It is supposed that they originated in the
practice of letting loose a flock of sheep and goats in the streets of Athens
on the occasion of a plague, and of offering them up in sacrifice, at the spot
where they lay down, “to the God concerned.”
- ATONEMENT This word does not occur in the Authorized Version of the
New Testament except in Romans 5:11, where in the Revised Version the
word “reconciliation” is used. In the Old Testament it is of frequent
occurrence.
The meaning of the word is simply at-one-ment, i.e., the state of being at
one or being reconciled, so that atonement is reconciliation. Thus it is used
to denote the effect which flows from the death of Christ.
But the word is also used to denote that by which this reconciliation is
brought about, viz., the death of Christ itself; and when so used it means
satisfaction, and in this sense to make an atonement for one is to make