graven the name of "JEHOVAH," which was impressed upon the foreheads of the faithful, symbolizes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (Rev. vii. 2-17; Eph. i. 13, 14; vi. 30; 2 Cor. i. 22; Ezek. ix. 4, 6; 2 Tim ii. 19.)-See RING. SEARED. To sear the flesh is to cauterize or burn it, and thus deprive it of the power of sensation. In 1 Tim. iv. 2, the term denotes the effect of habitual sin, by which the conscience becomes so stupified, as to be insensible to the most enormous guilt and the most fearful threatenings of punishment.

SEASONS. The general division of the year, by the Hebrews, was into two seasons, "Summer and Winter;" (Ps. lxiv. 17; Zech. xiv. 8;) but they appear also to have conveniently divided the year into six special seasons: "seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter." (Gen. i. 14; viii. 22.) According to this division, the seasons would seem to have been distributed in the following order: Summer, from the middle of August to the middle of October; Seed time, from the middle of October to the middle of December; Winter, from the middle of December to the middle of February; Cold, from the middle of February to the middle of April; Heat, from the middle of June to the middle of August.

SEAT. The ancient Egyptians had elegant chairs and ottomans, much in the modern fashion; and no doubt the wealthy Hebrews imitated them. In later times, the Hebrews adopted the custom of reclining upon couches at table. (1 Sam. ix. 22; Am. vi. 4; Est. vii. 8; Matt. xxiii. 6; Luke vii. 37, 38.) The Orientals usually sit upon low sofas, or divans, and also upon mats or carpets, on the floor, with the legs bent under, and crossed in a halfkneeling posture. In some parts of the East European influence has introduced chairs. Among the Romans, the ma gistrate when administering justice used a chair called "the judgment-seat." (Matt. xxvii. 19; Acts xviii. 12, 16; Rom. xiv. 10.)

SEBA man? A descendant of

Cush; (Gen. x. 7; 1 Chron. i. 9;) who gave name to a country, probably Meroe, a province of Ethiopia; distinguished for its wealth and commerce, surrounded by the Nile and two of its tributaries, and with a metropolis of the same name, of which the ruins are still found not far from the town of Shendi. (Isa. xliii. 3; Ps. lxxii. 10.) The inhabitants, called 66 Sabeans," were distinguished for their tall stature. (Isa. xlv. 14; Herod. iii. 20.) The Hebrew word rendered "Sabeans," in Ezek. xxiii. 42, properly signifies "drunkards," as in the margin.-See SHEBA.

SEBAT a stick or rod. The eleventh month of the Hebrew year, commencing with the new moon of February, and extending to the new moon of March. (Zech. i. 7.)

SECACAH-enclosure. A town in the desert of Judah. (Josh. xv. 61.)

SECHU watch-tower. A place near Ramah. Some suppose that Bir Neballa=the well of Neballa is "the great well of Sechu." (1 Sam. xix. 22.) SECT.-See HERESY.

SECUNDUS second. A Christian of Thessalonica. (Acts xx. 4.)

SEED. This term is frequently used to denote offspring or descendants. (Gen. xvii. 7; xxii. 17; Isa. lix. 21; Ps. xxii. 23.) The "seed of Abraham," (Gen. xxii. 18; Acts iii. 25; Gal. iii. 8, 16,) and the "seed of David," (Rom. i. 4,) designate emphatically the Messiah, who, according to the flesh, was the son or descendant of Abraham, and of David. (Matt. i. 1; xv. 22; Luke i. 27; xviii. 39; John vii. 42.) The "seed of the woman" designates the Messiah, and all true believers with Him. (Gen. iii. 15; Isa. vii. 14; Gal. iv. 4.) The Jews vaunted themselves in being the "seed of Abraham," and as such, heirs of special blessings; (Matt. iii. 9; John viii. 33;) but the Scriptures declare that they who are "of faith," i.e., believers in Christ, are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. iii. 7, 29.)

SEED-TIME.-See SEASONS.
SEER.-See PROPHECY.

SEGUB elevated. 1. A son of Hezron, and the father of Jair the Gileadite. (1 Chron. ii. 21, 22.) 2.See ABIRAM.

SEIR-hairy, or shaggy. 1. A phylarch or chief of the Horites; (Gen. xxxvi. 20-30; 1 Chron. i. 38-42;) who probably gave name to a mountainous country of the Edomites, anciently called "Mount Seir," extending from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, the northern part of which is now called Jebel, and the southern, esh-Sherah. (Gen. xiv. 6; Deut. i. 2.) Mount Seir was first inhabited by the Horites; (Deut. ii. 12;) then by Esau and his posterity. (Gen. xxxii. 3; xxxiii. 14, 16; 2 Chron. xx. 10.) Seir appears to be also used in a general sense for the land of Edom. (Ezek. xxv. 8, 12; xxxv. 2, 7, 15.) 2. A mountain in the territory of Judah. (Josh. xv. 10.) Some suppose this place to be designated by Sa'ir, to the north of Hebron; but others suppose it to be the ridge westward of Kirjath-jearim, and between it and Bethshemesh.

SEIRATH a she-goat. A place or tract in the mountains of Ephraim. (Judg. iii. 26, 27.)

A Temple cut in the rock. SELA rock. The ancient capital of the Edomites, situated between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, in Arabia Petra; which was

taken by Amaziah king of Judah, from the Moabites, who then held posession of it, and named by him "Joktheel"= subdued of God. The name is written "Selah," margin, the Rock; (2 Kings xiv. 7;) and also "Sela," (Isa. xvi. 1.) but in the margin of this passage it is called by its Greek name Petra, also a Rock. The same Hebrew word Sela, is rendered "the rock;" (Judg. i. 36; Isa. xlii. 11,) and may perhaps designate the same city. It derived its name Sela, or Petra, i. e., the Rock, from the fact that it was situated in a valley, encompassed by almost insurmountable rocks. This ancient city, now called Wady Musa,="the valley of Moses," was the great centre of the caravan trade throughout the East; is wholly uninhabited, except when the wandering Arab makes use of an excavated tomb to pass the night, or a caravan pauses there. This remarkable valley, shut in by sandstone rocks, resting upon lower masses of porphyry, variously and beautifully tinted with oxide of iron, towering in some places to the height of 700 feet, is entered by the course of a fine little brook, which flows down the eastern pass, through the wonderful necropolis. The tombs are isolated masses of rock, about fifteen or twenty feet square, which have been cut away from the adjacent cliffs. Farther down the valley contracts, presenting on each side of the high cliffs a street of tombs. At some distance beyond is the opening of the terrific chasm, which anciently formed the only avenue to the city on this side. This is the Sik of Wady Musa. "Near the westward," says Dr. Robinson, "the Sik terminates, opening nearly at right angles into a similar though broader Wady or chasm, coming down from the south and passing off northwest. All at once the beautiful facade of the Khuzneh "the Treasure," in the western precipice, opposite the mouth of the Sik, burst upon our view, in all the delicacy of its first chiselling, and in all the freshness and beauty of its soft colouring. The broken pediments and other ornaments are not all

in a pure style; and if seen in a different land, or without the accompaniments by which it is surrounded, it would perhaps exite little admiration. An urn crowns the summit of its ornamental front, a hundred feet or more above the ground. From the vestibule, the door leads into a plain lofty room excavated from the rock, the sides smooth, but without ornament. Behind this is another room of less size; and small lateral chambers are found on each side, opening from the large room and from the vestibule." We give a view from Laborde, of this remarkable temple. Beyond this temple, where the valley opens to a wider breadth, is the theatre, wholly hewn out of the live rock, with thirty three rows of seats, rising one above another in the side of the cliff behind, and capable of containing more than three thousand people. The cliffs on each side of the theatre are full of tombs. Advancing to the north-east, the ancient city itself opens fully to view, being shut in on the east and west by high perpendicular walls of sandstone rock. The whole area is covered with the foundations and stones of an extensive town. These foundations and rains cover an area of not much less than two miles in circumference, affording room enough, in an Oriental city, for the accommodation of thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. The most conspicuous of all the monuments, next to the Khuzneh, is the large temple called el-Deir. It lies high up among the cliffs of the western ridge, and is hewn out in the perpendicular face of a cliff. This astonishing work of art contains but one excavated chamber.

In looking at the wonders of this ancient city, Dr. Robinson observes, "The most striking feature of the place consists, not in the fact that there are occasional excavations and sculptures like those above described, but in the innumerable multitude of such excavations, along the whole extent of perpendicular rocks adjacent to the main area, and in all the lateral val

leys and chasms-the entrances of many of which are variously, richly, and often fantastically decorated, with every imaginable order and style of architecture. In the midst of the variety of architecture which here astonishes the spectator, two styles are obviously predominant, the Egyptian and the Roman-Greek; or rather it is the mixture and union of these two which here constitutes the prevailing style. The more classic orders of Greece and Rome are conspicuous in the columns and other ornaments. But even here all is florid and overloaded, indicating a later age and a degenerate taste. This amalgamation of style may be accounted for by the prevalence, first of the Roman influence and then of the Roman dominion, which penetrated hither by way of Asia Minor and Syria, and also from Egypt. This took place as we know, about the Christian era; and to that period and the subsequent centuries, are probably to be ascribed the architectural skill and monuments, on which strangers now gaze with surprise and wonder. Dr. Robinson thinks that some of the larger and more splendid excavations were temples of the gods, in later times occupied as Christian sanctuaries; while the others were sepulchral, and not intended in part as dwellings for the inhabitants of the place. The widespread ruins which are visible, attest that a large and extensive city of houses built of stone once occupied this spot, and the sepulchres, round about are comparatively less numerous than those which in like manner skirt the sites of ancient Thebes and Memphis. The city which stood here, was of itself built "in the clefts of the rock;" (Jer. xlix. 16;) without the necessity of our looking for single dwellings in such a situation. This mysterious and devoted city, unknown for centuries to Europeans, was frequently the subject of prophetic denunciations, which are strikingly fulfilled in the gloomy desolations which reign over its ancient magnificence.

SELAH. This Hebrew musical term, which occurs seventy-three times in the Psalms, and elsewhere only in Hab. iii. 3, 9, 13, is supposed by Somner to be connected with the use of the trumpets in the temple-music; and the passages in which the term occurs, to be actual appeals or summonses to Jehovah-as 66 Hear, Jehovah!" or "Awake, Jehovah!" The term is placed by the poet at the passages where, in the temple-song, the choir of priests, standing opposite to that of the Levites, sounded the trumpets, and, with the powerful tones of this instrument, the words first spoken were marked and borne upwards to Jehovah's ear. (Ps. iv. 2; vii. 5; xx. 3; xxxii. 4, 5, 7; Ixvi. 4, 7, 15; lxviii. 7.) This intercessory music of the priests-which seems to have been the peculiar symbolical representation of an urgent appeal to Jehovah-was probably sustained on the part of the Levites by the vigorous tones of the psaltery and harp; hence the Greek translation of the term diapsalma. The same appears further from the full phrase "Higgaion Selah," the first word denoting the sound of the stringed instruments, the latter the blast of the trumpets, both of which would here sound to

gether. (Ps. ix. 16; xcii. 3.)

SELA HAMMAHLEKOTH = the rock of escapes. A rock or natural stronghold in the wilderness of Maon, whence Saul returned from pursuing David. (1 Sam. xxiii. 28.)

SELED exultation. A descendant of Jerahmeel. (1 Chron. ii. 30.)

SELEUCIA. A city of Syria, the port of Antioch, situated on the coast about five miles north of the mouth of the Orontes; sometimes called Seleucia Pieria, from the neighbouring Mount Pierius; and also Seleucia ad Mare, in order to distinguish it from several other cities of the same name, all so called from the Seleucus Nicanor. (1 Macc. xi. 8; Jos. Ant. xviii. 9. 8.) It was about four miles in circumference; and its ruins are considerable

city there are many large tombs cut in the rock; and also an extraordinary tunnel cut in the mountain sides. Paul and Barnabas embarked at this port for Cyprus, (Acts xiii. 4.) SEM.-See SHEM,

SEMACHIAH = Jehovah sustains

him. A Levite. (1 Chron. xxvi. 7.) SEMEL renowned. An ancestor of Mary. (Luke iii. 26.)

SENAAH.-See HASSENAAH. SENEH a thorn-bush, brumble. A pointed rock, i.e., thorn-rock, on the side of the pass of Michmash, (1 Sam xiv. 4.)

SENIR.-See HERMON.

=

SENNACHERIB Sin, i.e., the moon increases brothers, or conqueror of armies. A king of Assyria who mounted the throne B.C. 714, or according to others as late as B.C. 702. Sennacherib, also called "Sanherib," (2 Kings xviii. 13, margin,) but in the Assyrian cuneiform Tsinakki-irib, invaded the kingdom of Judah, and took several of the fenced cities. He also laid siege to the city of Lachish. (2 Kings xviii 14, 17.) Among the ruins of the palace at Kouyunjik, built by Sennacherib, Mr. Layard found several bas

reliefs, representing the siege and capture of a city, which he supposes to have been Lachish, but which Sir H. Rawlinson reads Libnah. On one of the slabs the king is represented on his throne-a copy of this sculpture, by the kind permission of Mr. Layard, we give-and above the head of the king a cuneiform inscription: "Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment, before the city of Lachish; I give permission for its slaughter." At the same time, the Assyrian king amerced king Hezekiah in a tribute or indemnification of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold. (2 Kings xviii. 14, 15.) The characteristic version of this campaign is given by the Assyrian monarch himself, in the inscriptions on one of the great bulls which stood at the entrance of the palace at Kouyunjik; and is thus translated by Sir H. Rawlinson: "Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong fenced cities, and innumerable smaller towns which depended on them, I took and plundered; but I left to him Jerusasalem, his capital city, and some of the inferior towns around it. The cities which I had taken and plundered I detained from the government of Hezekiah, and distributed them between the kings of Ashdod, and Ascalon, and Ekron, and Gaza; and, having thus invaded the territory of these chiefs, I imposed upon them a corresponding, increase of tribute, over that to which they had formerly been subjected; and, because Hezekiah still continued to refuse to pay me homage, I attacked and carried off the whole population, fixed and nomade, which dwelled around Jerusalem, with thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver, the accumulated wealth of the nobles of Hezekiah's court, and of their daughters, with the officers of his palace, men slaves, and women slaves. I returned to Nineveh, and I accounted their spoil for the tribute which he had refused to pay me."

The difference in the two accounts of the number of talents of silver, may be accounted for by supposing the three hundred talents to have been the tribute, and the extra five hundred talents the precious metal torn from the doors, pillars, etc., of the temple, and pillaged from the nobles of Judah, as indemnity for the past. This amount of plunder, however, did not satisfy the Assyrian monarch, who had now renewed the campaign, and laid siege to Libnah. He arrogantly summoned the Hebrew king to surrender his capital; but the angel of the Lord smote the Assyrian camp by night, and destroyed 185,000 fighting men, so that the monarch abandoned the enterprise in despair, and returned to Nineveh, where, sometime afterwards, he was slain in the temple of Nisroch by his two sons. (2 Kings xviii. 1337; xix. 1-37.) According to Herodotus, (ii. 141) the Egyptians arrogated this miracle to themselves, declaring that Sennacherib had been compelled to raise the siege of Pelusium, by their god Pthah, who sent a multitude of mice by night into the enemy's camp, which gnawed to pieces their quivers and bow-strings, as well as the straps of their shields; so that the Assyrians, in the morning, finding themselves without arms, fled in confusion, and

lost great numbers of their men. Sennacherib would not be expected to publish, at Nineveh, the manner and extent of the terrible ruin inflicted on his army by the visitation of God. Still, every fact stated in the Bible, as occurring in Judea, is repeated in the inscriptions; and the ruin of his army is virtually admitted by Sennacherib, in the fact of Hezekiah's continued possession of Jerusalem. The annals of the first eight years of Sennacherib have been