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exegesis of these passages the present article does not deal further than to say that the attempt to relieve the earlier passage of difficulty by calling attention to its poetical character seems unnecessary because of the existence of the second and much later passage, where not merely suspension of progress but actual reversal equivalent to forty minutes in time is stated as an actual fact (if the " degrees " be of a circumference). If the Hebrews of Hezekiah's age and later could accept as historical such an event, it is not necessary to have recourse to the usual palliative explanations of a statement arising so much nearer a primitive (and more credulous) age dealing with the stopping (apparently for twenty-four hours, cf. Josh. x. 13, last clause) of the sun's progress. The effects of the sun's action on the earth were, according to Hebrew belief, in general, the production of crops (Deut. xxxlll. 14; II Sam. xxiii. 4); it was his also to give light (Gen. i.; Eccles. xi. 7; Rev. vii. 16) and heat (Ps. xix. 6). In respect to this last function it is noteworthy that the references to the scorching heat of the sun, to what may be called its malign influence, are comparatively infrequent (Ps. cxxi. 6; Isa. iv. 6, xxv. 4, xlix. 10; Jonah iv. 8; Rev. xvi. 8-9), though the conception of its malevolence comes out frequently in other lands, as in India (see below, II., 6) and in Babylonia, where Nergal was a god of destruction (see BABYLONIA, VIL, 2, § 4). The prevailing Biblical idea of the sun was that of its might and glory as a luminary, and these naturally became the basis of poetical comparison for heroes and the faithful (Judges v. 31; II Sam. xxiii. 4; Ps. xix. 5-6; Cant. vi. 10) ; Yahweh is himself in metaphor called a sun (Ps. lxxxiv. 11; Isa. Ix. 19), and his healing grace is in the same manner compared with a sun of righteousness (Mal. iv. 2). The passage in Isa. xxiv. 23 is noteworthy-the glory of the restored Zion and Jerusalem is to be so great that even the sun in his brightness will be abashed (there does not seem any basis for the quite common exegesis of the passage which regards the sun and moon here as demonic powers which are put away, e.g., W. von Baudissin, in Hauck-Herzog, RE, xviii. 519, and Semitische Stvdien, i. 118 sqq., Leipsie, 1876).

The evidence for the worship of the sun among Israelites is limited and late. II Kings xxiii. 11 records the destruction of the chariots and removal of the horses of the sun from the Tem3. Worship. plc at Jerusalem. Ezek. viii. 16 describes a vision of the prophet in which he saw twenty-five men at the door of the Temple worshiping the sun in the East and " putting the branch to their nose " (i.e., using a branch as symbolic of the productive powers of the sun; cf. J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, passim, 3 vols., London, 1900; tree-worship often combines with the cult of the sun). With respect to the chariot and horses of the sun the most obvious source is Babylon (see below, II., and cf. Jensen, Kosmologie, ut sup., pp. 108 sqq.; Schrader, KAT, p. 368). It is hardly likely that so early as this the influence of the Persians is to be seen (cf. F. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, ii. 66 sqq., Leipsic, 1873; for references to the Persian sacred horses cf. Herodotus, i. 189, vii. 55, viii. 115; Xenophon, Cyropcedia, VIII., iii. 12;

and the Mihir Yast, § 13, Am. ed. of SBE, iii., part 2, p. 122, speaks of the " swift-horsed sun "). The idea of the chariot of the sun appears outside of these sources and the Greek myths in Enoch, lxxii. 5, lxxiii. 2, lxxv. 3, 4, 8, where sun, moon, and stars are supplied with chariots; Baruch, Apocalypse, vi.; and the Mandaeans placed the seven planets in chariots. The conception of Yahweh or of the Son of Man riding on the clouds (Ps. eiv. 3; Dan. vii. 13) has no relationship to this idea. Further evidence of sun-worship in Israel is furnished by the existence of sun-pillars (Hebr. hammanim, A. V., " images," R. V., " sun-images "; for representation of one to " the lord, Baal-Hamman," cf. Benzinger, Archdologie, p. 183) which the reforming kings are said to have destroyed (II Chron. xiv. 5, Hebr. verse 4, xxxiv. 4, 7) against which the exilic and post-exilic prophets speaking in Isa. xvii. 8, xxvii. 9 and Ezek. vi. 4, 6, and the priestly writer (Lev. xxvi. 30) uttered their threats.* Other evidences adduced to prove the existence of worship of the sun among the Israelites do not bear examination. Certainly the name of Samson, even though it be derived from shemesh (which is not altogether sure) does not show this cult; it is not at all necessary, nor is it the best explanation of the episode to regard it as a sun myth, since it is rather an accretion of legend about a character whose exploits were probably in fact just such as suit the heroic period of a nation's development. And as little faith is to be put in the assumption that the horses and chariot of fire by which Elijah was translated are those of the sun. The much later practise of the Essenes (q.v.), as given in Josephus, War, II., viii. 5, of directing their worship toward the sun instead of toward Jerusalem is hardly sufficient, in view of the general Pharisaic character of their beliefs and customs, to convict them of following the cult of the sun. The MandTan practises were not Jewish but Babylonian in origin. Dr. Briggs, in his commentary on Psalms (vol. i., New York, 1906), sees in the first part of Ps. xix. a hymn to the sun.

All indications point to a late date for the importation of this cult into Israel, and also to its derivation from the peoples in the immediate environment, and (less likely) from Assyria. It is true that the Chronicles (II Chron. xiv. 3) reports that Asa suppressed this worship; but the parallel and earlier passage in I Kings xv. omits mention

Introduc- nutely the anti-idolatrous activities of tion. that king. The same situation is rapeated with reference to Josiah (II Chron. xxxlv. 4, 7; cf. II Kings xxiii.). So that apparently the earliest mention of the sun-pillars is found in Ezekiel, and this squares with the other data already examined. The mention of the horses and chariot of the sun, however, carries this feature

* The word for " sun-pillar " in these passages is the same as that found in an inscription on an altar at Palmyra and now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, England (D. G. Hogarth, Authority and Archceology, pp. 135, 139, London, 1899), and in the name Baal-Hamman, who was a sun-deity of Carthage, as is shown by a votive pillar and by inscriptions (W. Gesenius, Scripturev lingucoque Phoenicia monumenta, table 21, Leipsic, 1807). Other traces of this name are quite frequent in Aramean environment.