APOSTATE CITIES

Israelite cities that turned apostate were to be completely annihilated with all their inhabitants, the spoil to be burned in the public square and the city to be left “a heap of ruins to time indefinite.”—Deut. 13:12-17.

CHRIST DESPOILS SATAN’S HOUSE

Jesus Christ, when on earth, despoiled or ‘plundered’ the house of Satan by delivering those held in bondage to the demons, curing the afflictions the demons had brought upon them. (Matt. 12:22-29) Also, “when he ascended on high he carried away captives; he gave gifts in men.” These he took away from Satan’s control as gifts for the building up of his congregation.—Eph. 4:8, 11, 12.

FALSE RELIGIOUS SPOILERS

Christ declared the scribes and Pharisees to be, like robbers, “full of plunder,” evidently acquired by extortion from widows and other defenseless persons; and also because they kept the people in a religious bondage by taking away “the key of knowledge.” (Matt. 23:25; Luke 11:52) The religious leaders of the Jews were likewise prominent in causing the plundering of the possessions of Christians.—Heb. 10:34.

SPONGE

The absorbent, tough, elastic skeleton of certain aquatic animals found in abundance in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere. Sponges were probably obtained (in the past as today) by divers who removed them by hand from underwater rocks. After the living animal died and decayed within its skeleton, the sponge was washed thoroughly until only the skeleton remained.

The sponge’s ability to absorb and release liquids made it commercially important in ancient times for bathing and cleaning purposes. Sponges are not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. A sponge soaked with sour wine was offered to Jesus Christ at the end of a reed while he was on the torture stake.—Matt. 27:48; Mark 15:36; John 19:29.

STACHYS

(Staʹchys) [an ear of grain].

One in the Christian congregation at Rome in about 56 C.E. whom Paul speaks of as “my beloved,” and to whom he sends his greetings.—Rom. 16:9.

STACTE

One of the ingredients of the incense limited to sacred use. (Ex. 30:34-37) The stacte drops perhaps were the product of the storax, a tree that exudes a brown, vanilla-flavored resin from incisions made in its stem and branches. Another possible source for stacte may be the opobalsam, a shrublike evergreen tree yielding a greenish-yellow oily resin.

STAG

An adult male deer. The red deer, the fallow deer and the roe deer, still encountered in the northern part of the Middle East, are the varieties of deer thought to have formerly inhabited Palestine. Although none of these animals are now known to exist there, as late as 1890 the roe deer was not uncommon in southern Lebanon and Carmel. Being a chewer of the cud and a splitter of the hoof, the stag, according to the Law, was acceptable for food if, as in the case of other creatures, its blood was poured out upon the ground. (Deut. 12:15, 16, 22, 23; 14:4-6; 15:22, 23) The flesh of the stag was included among the meats provided for King Solomon’s table.—1 Ki. 4:22, 23.

Other Scriptural references to the stag are illustrative. The Shulammite compared her shepherd lover to a young stag and made allusion to the swiftness of this animal. (Song of Sol. 2:9, 17; 8:14) The stag’s ability to climb steep places with ease is used to illustrate the complete cure of spiritually lame persons. (Isa. 35:6; compare Hebrews 12:12, 13.) When faced with the Babylonian siege, Zion’s princes were like stags too weak from lack of food to run.—Lam. 1:6.

STAKE

See TORTURE STAKE.

STAR

[Heb., koh·khavʹ; Gr., a·sterʹ, aʹstron].

These Hebrew and Greek terms are applied in a general sense to any luminous body in space, excepting the sun and moon, for which other names are used.

VASTNESS OF UNIVERSE

The galaxy within which our Earth is located, commonly called the “Milky Way” or “Via Lactea,” is believed to measure some one hundred and twenty thousand light-years across and to contain some one hundred thousand million stars like our sun. The closest star to Earth, one of the Alpha Centauri group, is 25,000,000,000,000 miles (40,225,000,000,000 kilometers) away. Yet this immensity seems relatively small in view of the estimate that there are millions of galaxies throughout universal space. Modern telescopes indicate such within their present limit of one thousand million light-years in distance.

The vastness of the stellar creation adds infinite force and meaning to the Creator’s statement at Isaiah 40:26: “Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.” (Compare Psalm 147:4.) The reverent psalmist was led to say: “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared, what is mortal man that you keep him in mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him?”—Ps. 8:3, 4.

AGE

The fact that the light rays from remote stars and galaxies millions of light-years distant now reach the lenses of giant telescopes on earth indicates that the creation of these astral bodies occurred millions of years in the past, since otherwise their light would not yet have reached our planet. Such creation is evidently included in the initial statement at Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Verse 16 does not contradict this in saying that during the fourth creative “day” or period: “God proceeded to make . . . the stars.” The word “make” (Heb., ʽa·sahʹ) does not mean the same as the word “create” (Heb., ba·raʼʹ).

NUMBER OF STARS

In addressing man, God used the stars as denoting a countless number, comparable to the grains of sand on the seashores. (Gen. 22:17; 15:5; Ex. 32:13; compare Nehemiah 9:23; Nahum 3:15, 16; Hebrews 11:12.) Since the stars clearly discernible to the unaided eye number only a few thousand, this comparison was viewed by many in the past as out of balance. Yet today the evidence shows that the number of stars does indeed compare to all the grains of sand in all the earth.

It is of interest to note that, while Moses spoke of Israel as having seen a certain fulfillment of this Abrahamic promise, the censuses taken of the population, as recorded in the Bible, never did include the total number in the nation. (Deut. 1:10; 10:22; 28:62) David is mentioned later as specifically refraining from taking the number of those “from twenty years of age and under, because Jehovah had promised to make Israel as many as the stars of the heavens.” (1 Chron. 27:23) Such concept of the innumerableness of these heavenly bodies distinguishes the Bible writings as unique when compared with contemporary views of ancient peoples.

ORDERLY ARRANGEMENT

Additionally, the orderliness of the arrangement of these celestial bodies is emphasized in various texts, references being made to “statutes,” “regulations,” and “orbits” (“courses,” RS). (Jer. 31:35-37; Judg. 5:20; compare Jude 13.) The tremendous forces