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Cord, RopeAid to Bible Understanding
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against God and his anointed one in ancient times, so Messianic prophecy foretold that kings of the earth and high officials would mass together as one “against Jehovah and against his anointed one, saying: ‘Let us tear their bands apart and cast their cords away from us!’” Any restrictions imposed by Jehovah and his anointed one would be opposed by the rulers and nations. However, their efforts to tear apart such bands and cast away such cords were to be futile.—Ps. 2:1-9.
Tent cords torn in two and thus no longer able to hold a tent erect are used figuratively in a description of desolation. (Jer. 10:20) But there is prophetic assurance of just the opposite, restoration and Jehovah’s favor, in the words: “Behold Zion, the town of our festal occasions! Your own eyes will see Jerusalem an undisturbed abiding place, a tent that no one will pack up. Never will its tent pins be pulled out, and none of its ropes will be torn in two.”—Isa. 33:20.
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Coriander SeedAid to Bible Understanding
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CORIANDER SEED
(Heb., gadh)./1
The manna eaten by the Israelites in the wilderness was said to be “white like coriander seed” (Ex. 16:31), evidently resembling it not only in color but also in general appearance.—Num. 11:7.
The coriander (Coriandrum sativum, L.) is an annual plant growing about sixteen to twenty inches (40.6 to 50.8 centimeters) high with parsley-like leaves and umbelliferous pink or white flower clusters. The fruit consists of globular seeds, of a grayish-white color and about the size of peppercorn. The Hebrew name is thought to derive from a root word (ga·dhadhʹ), meaning “to penetrate or cut” and hence may describe the fine grooves or furrows that characterize the seeds. The seeds contain an aromatic oil having a pleasant flavor and are used as spice in Oriental cooking and on bakery products, as well as medicinally for minor stomach ailments.
Coriander seed was used in Egypt from ancient times and so was undoubtedly well known to the Israelites before the Exodus. It grows wild in that country as well as in the Palestine area.
[Picture on page 378]
Coriander leaves and blossoms
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CorinthAid to Bible Understanding
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CORINTH
(Corʹinth).
One of the oldest and most prominent cities of ancient Greece. Corinth’s importance resulted in large degree from its immensely strategic location at the western side of the isthmus or narrow neck of land connecting the central or mainland part of Greece with the southern peninsula, the Peloponnesus. All land traffic, commercial or otherwise, going N and S had to pass Corinth in traversing the isthmus, which at its narrowest point measures only three and a half miles (5.6 kilometers) across. But international maritime traffic was drawn to Corinth as well, for navigators generally preferred to make use of this isthmus between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf rather than risk the dangerous two-hundred-mile (321.8-kilometer) trip around the storm-swept capes at the southern end of the peninsula. Thus, ships from Italy, Sicily and Spain sailed across the Ionian Sea, through the hundred-mile-long (c. 161-kilometer-long) Gulf of Corinth, and docked at the deep-water harbor of Lechaeum, the western port city tied in with Corinth by long walls. Ships from Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt came through the Aegean Sea and anchored at the eastern port facilities of Cenchreae, or perhaps at the smaller port of Schoenus. (Rom. 16:1) Merchandise from large vessels was unloaded at one harbor and transported the few miles overland to the other, there to be transshipped. Smaller vessels, with their cargoes aboard, were hauled across the isthmus by means of some kind of shipway called the diʹol·kos (Gr., “haul-across”). With good reason the isthmus of Corinth was known as “the bridge of the sea.”
Adding to Corinth’s strategic importance, particularly in a military sense, was its position at the northern foot of the Acrocorinth, a steep rocky hill that towers some 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) above the city and 1,857 feet (c. 566 meters) above sea level. Its fiat top provided an impregnable site for military installations. From here, on a clear day, one can see the Acropolis of Athens, some forty miles (64.4 kilometers) distant.
HISTORY
The initial history of this ancient city is obscure. It was already flourishing in the seventh century B.C.E., when the Isthmian Games, celebrated every two years and drawn on by the apostle Paul for some of his most striking illustrations, were established at the isthmian Temple of Poseidon (the Greek god of the sea and counterpart of the Roman Neptune). (1 Cor. 9:24-27) From the fourth century B.C.E. onward Corinth was generally under Macedonian domination until its liberation by the Romans in 196 B.C.E. As an independent city-state it joined other cities in the Achaean League, became involved in opposition to Rome and was destroyed by Roman consul L. Mummius in 146 B.C.E., its men slaughtered and its women and children sold into slavery. For a century it lay relatively desolate until Julius Caesar, in 44 B.C.E. (some say 46 B.C.E.), refounded the city as a Roman colony, Colonia Laus Julia Corinthiensis. Achaia, as the Romans called Greece apart from Macedonia, became a Roman senatorial province during the reign of Caesar Augustus and Corinth was made the capital.
INDUSTRY AND BUILDINGS
The city of Corinth at which Paul arrived about the year 50 C.E., therefore, was a bustling crossroads of commerce and a political center. The tolls levied on the cargoes flowing across the isthmus contributed much to Corinth’s wealth, but it was also an industrial center, famous for its pottery and bronzeware. The city itself was built on two terraces, one about one hundred feet (30.5 meters) above the other. At its center was the spacious Agora or marketplace, lined with colonnades and public buildings. Rows of
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