revelry of the banquet held in the border fortress, to please Salome, who
danced before him, he sent an executioner, who beheaded John, and
“brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel” (Mark 6:14-29).
This castle stood “starkly bold and clear” 3,860 feet above the Dead Sea,
and 2,546 above the Mediterranean. Its ruins, now called M’khaur, are still
visible on the northern end of Jebel Attarus.
- MACHBANAI clad with a mantle, or bond of the Lord, one of the Gadite
heroes who joined David in the wilderness (1 Chronicles 12:13). - MACHIR sold. (1.) Manasseh’s oldest son (Joshua 17:1), or probably
his only son (see 1 Chronicles 7:14, 15; comp. Numbers 26:29-33; Joshua
13:31). His descendants are referred to under the name of Machirites, being
the offspring of Gilead (Numbers 26:29). They settled in land taken from
the Amorites (Numbers 32:39, 40; Deuteronomy 3:15) by a special
enactment (Numbers 36:1-3; Joshua 17:3, 4). He is once mentioned as the
representative of the tribe of Manasseh east of Jordan (Judges 5:14).
(2.) A descendant of the preceding, residing at Lo-debar, where he
maintained Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth till he was taken under the care
of David (2 Samuel 9:4), and where he afterwards gave shelter to David
himself when he was a fugitive (17:27).
- MACHPELAH portion; double cave, the cave which Abraham bought,
together with the field in which it stood, from Ephron the Hittite, for a
family burying-place (Genesis 23). It is one of those Bible localities about
the identification of which there can be no doubt. It was on the slope of a
hill on the east of Hebron, “before Mamre.” Here were laid the bodies of
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah (Genesis 23:19;
25:9; 49:31; 50:13). Over the cave an ancient Christian church was erected,
probably in the time of Justinian, the Roman emperor. This church has
been converted into a Mohammedan mosque. The whole is surrounded by
the el-Haram i.e., “the sacred enclosure,” about 200 feet long, 115 broad,
and of an average height of about 50. This building, from the immense size
of some of its stones, and the manner in which they are fitted together, is
supposed by some to have been erected in the days of David or of
Solomon, while others ascribe it to the time of Herod. It is looked upon as
the most ancient and finest relic of Jewish architecture.
On the floor of the mosque are erected six large cenotaphs as monuments
to the dead who are buried in the cave beneath. Between the cenotaphs of