LT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 139 



English would probably convey the meaning intended much 

 better than the word " sea." The contrast between the 

 brightness of the morning in the ease, and the figure of 

 extreme darkness in uttermost west seems intelligible, more 

 particularly as the passage goes on to say that darkness cannot 

 hide from God. The employment of the word "sea" in 

 English destroys this sequence of ideas. All the four versions, 

 however, use the word " sea," and none of them even gives a 

 marginal note that the " west " might be intended. It is 

 somewhat remarkable that the word " Yam," the sea, so often 

 translated " west," is once rendered by the word " south " in the 

 text of both A.V. and E.V. (Ps. cvii, 3). 



The Negeb, the dry hilly southern part of Judaea, is always 

 translated the south or south country ; in one case in the R.V. 

 (Gen. xiii, 1) it would appear better to have used the name of 

 the country instead of the expression " the south," as Abraham 

 did not go in a southward direction, when he went from Egypt 

 to the Negeb. 



There is apparently no trace in the New Testament that the 

 east was regarded as the front, and that the other cardinal 

 points were grouped in relation to it ; on the contrary, it seems 

 that the modern European idea of the vertical plane of the 

 meridian being considered the fundamental one had arisen 

 and prevailed, for the word meseuibria, which originally meant 

 mid-day, also signifies south, and it is so translated in the text 

 of Acts viii, 26, of botli our A.V. and K.V. As the same 

 double meaning is attached to the French and Spanish words 

 " midi " and " mediodia," and as both their versions give only 

 " south " in the passage under consideration, the marginal 

 reading " or at noon " in our R.V. may be unnecessary. 



It is interesting to note that the Latin meridies, from 

 which the French and Spanish words are both derived, has 

 entirely lost its meaning of " noon " on entering the English 

 language, since our word " meridian " only signifies direction. 



Orientation. — In the earlier books of the Bible, the points of 

 the compass are very often alluded to, as for instance in the 

 description of the orientation of the Tabernacle, and of the 

 position of the tribes around it in the wilderness, and in 

 agreement with this modern research tells us that ancient 

 temples were generally carefully placed in directions indicated 

 astronomically. 



Tabernacle compared with Heathen Temples. — Comparing an 

 ordinary heathen, Egyptian, or Greek temple with the 

 tabernacle in the wilderness, we find a general agreement in the 



