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AdornmentAid to Bible Understanding
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for adorning herself for the wrong purpose of attracting passionate lovers and engaging in false worship. (Hos. 2:13) Through his prophets Jehovah foretold a restoration of Israel when she would come out of Babylonish captivity and again adorn herself to express her joy and exultation.—Isa. 52:1; Jer. 31:4.
The temple of Solomon and Solomon’s governmental buildings were beautifully adorned, to the delight of the queen of Sheba. (1 Ki. chaps. 6, 7, 10) The temple built by Herod was a magnificent edifice adorned with fine stones and dedicated things. But Jesus showed that these material adornments would be of no avail when God’s judgment came upon Jerusalem for her unfaithfulness.—Luke 21:5, 6.
CHRISTIAN COUNSEL ON PERSONAL ADORNMENT
Jesus and his apostles counseled constantly against putting trust in physical things and putting on a false show by means of material adornment. The apostle Paul said that Christian women should “adorn themselves in well-arranged dress, with modesty and soundness of mind, not with styles of hair braiding and gold or pearls or very expensive garb.” (1 Tim. 2:9) During the days of the apostles it was a custom among women in that world of Greek culture to go in for elaborate coiffures and other adornment. This gives point to Peter’s counsel to women in the Christian congregation to put emphasis, not on the ‘external braiding of the hair and the putting on of gold ornaments or the wearing of outer garments,’ but to let their adornment be, as with the faithful women of old, “the secret person of the heart in the incorruptible apparel of the quiet and mild spirit.”—1 Pet. 3:3-5.
The apostle Paul points out that the Christian can, by fine works of incorruptibleness in his teaching, seriousness, wholesome speech and right conduct in all his ways of life, beautify and make the teachings of God attractive to others. (Titus 2:10) In this spiritual way, the Christian congregation, the bride of Christ, eventually appears in her full beauty to her husband Jesus Christ, similarly described at Revelation 21:2 as “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Her spiritual beauty is a direct contrast to the adornment of Babylon the Great, spoken of as adorned with material things, the wage of her prostitution.—Rev. 18:16; see DRESS; JEWELS AND PRECIOUS STONES; ORNAMENTS.
The Proverbs show that if a great number of people choose to live under and delight in the rule of a king it is one measure of his success. It is an adornment to him, recommending and adding luster to him as a ruler. (Prov. 14:28) Jehovah is such a ruler by his Messianic kingdom.—Ps. 22:27-31; Phil. 2:10, 11.
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AdrammelechAid to Bible Understanding
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ADRAMMELECH
(A·dramʹme·lech) [“Adar is king,” or “the lordship of Melech”].
1. A son of Assyrian king Sennacherib. Adrammelech and his brother Sharezer killed their father while he was bowing down at the house of his god Nisroch at Nineveh following the failure of his attack of Jerusalem. They then escaped to the land of Ararat apparently in the location of ancient Armenia in the mountainous region to the W of what is now known as the Caspian Sea. (2 Ki. 19:35-37; Isa. 37:36-38) An inscription of Esar-haddon, another son of Sennacherib, relates that as his father’s successor he engaged and defeated the armies of his father’s murderers at Hanigalbat in that region.
2. A god worshiped by the Sepharvites, one of the subjugated peoples the king of Assyria brought into the territory of Samaria after his taking the Israelites of the ten-tribe kingdom into exile. It was to Adrammelech and Anammelech that the Sepharvites sacrificed their sons in the fire.—2 Ki. 17:22-24, 31, 33.
On the basis of the name “Adrammelech,” a number of varying conclusions have been drawn concerning the nature of this deity. Believing the name actually to be “Adad-melekh,” some suggest that he was the Babylonian god of storm and rain, Adad, worshiped in the manner of the Ammonite god Melekh (Molech). (Compare 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31.) Others regard Adrammelech as a sun-god, interpreting his name to mean “fire-king.”
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AdramyttiumAid to Bible Understanding
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ADRAMYTTIUM
(Ad·ra·mytʹti·um).
A seaport city on the Aegean Sea, located in Mysia at the NW corner of Asia Minor, N of Pergamum. In modern Turkey the harbor site is now called Karatash, while the inland town of Edremit preserves the earlier name.
Adramyttium was part of the province of Asia under Roman rule and was evidently at one time a maritime commercial center of some importance, since it lay on the Roman road that passed through Pergamum and Ephesus to the south and Assos, Troas and the Hellespont to the west and north. It is likely that Paul passed through Adramyttium on his third missionary tour. The only direct Bible reference to the place, however, is at Acts 27:2. At Caesarea, Paul as a prisoner in the custody of the Roman officer Julius, boarded a ship from Adramyttium that was sailing to points along the coast of Asia Minor. Paul’s party left the ship at Myra in Lycia, transferring to a grain boat from Alexandria that was sailing for Italy. (Acts 27:3-6) The Adramyttium vessel likely continued on around the coast heading for its home port.
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AdriaAid to Bible Understanding
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ADRIA
(Aʹdri·a).
At Acts 27:27 reference is made to the “sea of Adria,” in which Paul spent fourteen turbulent days before being shipwrecked on the island of Malta. Strabo, a Greek geographer of the first century B.C.E., says this name is derived from the city of Atri, located at the mouth of the Po River on what is now called the Gulf of Venice. The present Italian city of Adria lies somewhat back from the coast. It appears that the name “Adria” came to apply to the waters in that vicinity and was progressively extended to include all the present Adriatic Sea, the Ionian Sea and those waters of the Mediterranean E of Sicily (and Malta) and W of Crete. So the name covered some waters that today are considered as outside the Adriatic Sea; but in Paul’s day the island of Malta could properly be said to be bounded by the “sea of Adria.”
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AdrielAid to Bible Understanding
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ADRIEL
(Aʹdri·el) [flock of God].
The son of Barzillai, from the city of Abel-meholah. Adriel was given Saul’s oldest daughter Merab as wife, though she had previously been promised to David. (1 Sam. 18:17-19) All five of Adriel’s five sons were later surrendered for execution to help atone for Saul’s attempted annihilation of the Gibeonites. (2 Sam. 21:8, 9) In this account Michal rather than Merab is spoken of as the mother of Adriel’s five sons. Since Michal died childless (2 Sam. 6:23) and is nowhere spoken of as having been the wife of Adriel, some translators view the appearance of Michal’s name as a scribal error. Nearly all Hebrew manuscripts, however, use Michal’s name, and the traditional explanation is that Merab, Michal’s older sister, died early after having borne five sons to Adriel and that Michal thereafter undertook the bringing up of her sister’s five boys, thus resulting in their being spoken of as her sons. The Isaac Leeser translation (7th ed., 1922, Bloch Publishing Co.) reads at 2 Samuel 21:8: “And the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she had brought up for Adriel.”
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AdullamAid to Bible Understanding
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ADULLAM
(A·dulʹlam) [retreat, refuge].
A city of Judah in the fertile lowland or Shephelah, about halfway between Bethlehem and Lachish. (Josh. 15:35) It is identified with Tell esh-Sheikh Madhkur, about nine miles (14.5 kilometers) N-NE of modern Beit Jibrin (Eleutheropolis). The original name seems to be preserved in the name of the nearby ruins of ʽAid el-Miyeh. The site of Adullam dominates the Wadi (torrent valley) es-Sur and the approach from that part of the Shephelah into the interior of Judah, thus making it a strategic location. It is primarily
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