(5.) The head of the priestly family of Amok in the time of Zerubbabel
(Nehemiah 12:20).
- EBONY a black, hard wood, brought by the merchants from India to
Tyre (Ezekiel 27:15). It is the heart-wood, brought by Diospyros ebenus,
which grows in Ceylon and Southern India. - EBRONAH passage, one of the stations of the Israelites in their
wanderings (Numbers 33:34, 35). It was near Ezion-geber. - ECBATANA (Ezra 6:2 marg.). (See ACHMETHA.)
- ECCLESIASTES the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Koheleth, which
means “Preacher.” The old and traditional view of the authorship of this
book attributes it to Solomon. This view can be satisfactorily maintained,
though others date it from the Captivity. The writer represents himself
implicitly as Solomon (1:12). It has been appropriately styled The
Confession of King Solomon. “The writer is a man who has sinned in
giving way to selfishness and sensuality, who has paid the penalty of that
sin in satiety and weariness of life, but who has through all this been under
the discipline of a divine education, and has learned from it the lesson
which God meant to teach him.” “The writer concludes by pointing out
that the secret of a true life is that a man should consecrate the vigour of
his youth to God.” The key-note of the book is sounded in ch. 1:2,
“Vanity of vanities! saith the Preacher, Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!”
i.e., all man’s efforts to find happiness apart from God are without result.
- ECLIPSE of the sun alluded to in Amos 8:9; Micah 3:6; Zechariah 14:6;
Joel 2:10. Eclipses were regarded as tokens of God’s anger (Joel 3:15; Job
9:7). The darkness at the crucifixion has been ascribed to an eclipse
(Matthew 27:45); but on the other hand it is argued that the great intensity
of darkness caused by an eclipse never lasts for more than six minutes, and
this darkness lasted for three hours. Moreover, at the time of the Passover
the moon was full, and therefore there could not be an eclipse of the sun,
which is caused by an interposition of the moon between the sun and the
earth. - ED witness, a word not found in the original Hebrew, nor in the LXX.
and Vulgate, but added by the translators in the Authorized Version, also
in the Revised Version, of Joshua 22:34. The words are literally rendered: