for all time into the holy place and obtained an everlasting deliverance for us,” writes the apostle Paul. (Heb. 9:11, 12) On going into heaven and appearing before Jehovah, Christ entered into what was pictured by the innermost compartment of the tabernacle, namely, the Most Holy. (Heb. 9:24, 25) Thus the tabernacle and its services served as “a typical representation and a shadow of the heavenly things.”—Heb. 8:5.

Christian underpriests

While on earth, the followers of Jesus Christ are spoken of as “being built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood,” and as constituting “a royal priesthood.” (1 Pet. 2:5, 9) As the underpriests served in the courtyard and also in the Holy Place, so these Christian priests of God serve before his symbolic altar and also in the symbolic Holy Place. The priests of Israel had to be clean, washing themselves with water from the copper basin in the courtyard, when preparing to serve in the Holy Place. (Ex. 40:30-32) So, too, those Christians who have been declared righteous are said to be “washed clean.” (1 Cor. 6:11) The Israelite priests were surrounded by the figures of the cherubs on the tabernacle curtains as they carried out their duties there. This calls to mind the statement of the apostle to those declared righteous that, while yet on earth, “[God] seated us together in the heavenly places in union with Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:4-6) As these Christians of the “royal priesthood” serve, they offer sacrifices of praise (Heb. 13:15) and prayers to God (related to the incense; Rev. 8:4), eat the spiritual food God provides (as he provided the showbread for the priests; Mark 2:26), and enjoy light from God’s Word of truth (as from the lampstand; Ps. 119:105). The apostle Paul points out that they have the hope, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, of entering into the real “Most Holy,” heaven itself.—Heb. 6:19, 20; 9:24; 1 Pet. 1:3, 4.—See HOLY CONTRIBUTION; MOST HOLY.

HOLY SPIRIT

See SPIRIT.

HOMAM

(Hoʹmam) [possibly from a Hebrew verb meaning to make a noise, move noisily, confuse, discomfit]. Son of Horite Sheik Lotan; the same as Hemam.—Gen. 36:20-22; 1 Chron. 1:39; see HEMAM.

HOMER

A dry measure corresponding to the cor and equaling ten baths or ten ephahs. (Ezek. 45:11, 14) Based on the estimated volume of the bath measure, the ephah has been reckoned at .62 bushel (22 liters). The homer would therefore equal 6.2 bushels (220 liters) and the half-homer (Hos. 3:2), 3.1 bushels (110 liters). In the wilderness, greedy Israelites gathered miraculously provided quails in such numbers that the “one collecting least gathered ten homers” (62 bushels; 2,220 liters). (Num. 11:32) The Scriptures also mention the homer as a measure for barley, seed and wheat.—Lev. 27:16; Isa. 5:10; Ezek. 45:13.

HONEY, HONEYCOMB

The word “honey” as used in the Hebrew Scriptures is translated from the words yaʹʽar, noʹpheth, and d^evashʹ. This latter word may refer, not only to bee honey, but also to the syrup of fruits. In the Greek Scriptures meʹli is used, along with the adjective aʹgri·os, “wild,” to denote the honey of wild bees.

THE HONEYCOMB

The honeycomb is a marvel of engineering, revealing the Creator’s unparalleled wisdom and ability, in putting such “engineering” and construction instinct in the honeybee. The hexagonal shape of the cells is the ideal shape necessary to enable the comb to hold the maximum quantity of honey with the minimum usage of beeswax, of which the cell walls are made. When a comb is being built, beeswax is made by special glands in the bee’s body. It oozes through pores in the body, forming small white flakes that are picked up and carried by the bee’s legs to its jaws, where the wax is chewed, then placed in the part of the honeycomb being constructed. The walls of the comb are only one-eightieth of an inch (.32 millimeter) thick but can support thirty times their weight.

HONEY

Most of the Bible’s references to the honey of bees is to wild honey, such as John the Baptist ate in the wilderness. (Matt. 3:1, 4) Honeybees build their nests in a variety of places, including trees, rocks and, in one case, even in the carcass of a dead animal, which evidently was no longer carrion but had been dried out by the sun. This was the lion’s carcass from which Samson ate honey.—Judg. 14:8, 9.

Bee honey is a sweet, viscid fluid manufactured by bees from the nectar obtained from flowers and fruit. In the process of gathering the nectar and depositing it in the honeycomb, certain chemicals from the bee’s body are added. Some of the water evaporates from the nectar and the chemicals transform the nectar into honey. The color and flavor of honey vary according to the source of nectar. Honey is easily assimilated by the body; the two main sugars it contains (levulose and dextrose) are quickly converted into energy.

A beneficial food

The energy-giving property of honey is illustrated in the case of King Saul’s son Jonathan who, exhausted from battle, tasted some honey. Immediately his eyes “began to beam.” (1 Sam. 14:25-30) This energy food is listed among the provisions God supplied for his people in the wilderness. There, where few trees existed, the people were able to get honey to eat “out of a crag,” that is, from the honeycombs that the bees built in rocky places.—Deut. 32:13.

Curative properties

Honey also has curative properties. It is compared to pleasant sayings and wisdom, not only because of its sweetness and fine taste, but also because of its health-giving qualities. Pleasant sayings are healthful spiritually, just as honey is good for the physical body. The writer of Proverbs says: “Pleasant sayings are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and a healing to the bones.”—Prov. 16:24; 24:13, 14.

Fine words or sayings

The sweetness and enjoyment of eating honey is applied illustratively throughout the Scriptures. Examples are found at Ezekiel 3:2, 3 and Revelation 10:9. Comb honey is often mentioned, for it is considered superior in flavor, sweetness and richness to honey that has been exposed to the air for a time. Emphasizing the goodness and pleasantness of the words spoken by the Shulammite girl, her shepherd lover speaks of them as “comb honey” that keeps dripping from her lips. (Song of Sol. 4:11) Jehovah’s judicial decisions are so fine, healthful and beneficial that they are even “sweeter than honey and the flowing honey of the combs.” (Ps. 19:9, 10) His sayings are ‘smoother to the palate than honey to the mouth.’—Ps. 119:103.

A warning against seeking one’s own glory

While honey is good, overeating of it can cause nausea (Prov. 25:16); this eating of too much honey is compared to people seeking out their own glory.—Prov. 25:27.

A warning against immorality

The temptation to sexual immorality that the “strange woman” can bring to bear by her appeal to a man with her use of charm and smooth words is described at Proverbs, chapters five and seven. It constitutes a fine warning to Christians today. “As a honeycomb the lips of a strange woman keep dripping, and her palate is smoother than oil. But the aftereffect from her is as bitter as wormwood; it is as sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet are descending to death,” says the wise man. Her smooth, honeylike words and actions lead the man right up to the immoral act so that “all of a sudden he is going after her, like a bull that comes even to the slaughter.”—Prov. 5:3-5; 7:21, 22.

HONEY OF FRUITS

The Hebrew word d^evashʹ can refer also to the juice or syrup of fruits—figs, dates, and so forth. Often the context enables the reader to determine whether or not bee honey is meant. Evidently the syrup of fruits is what is prohibited from being offered on the altar at Leviticus 2:11, because of its tendency to ferment. That bee honey is not meant here is indicated by the next verse, which included the prohibited “honey” as firstfruits. Most of the honey used by the Israelites was wild honey, not a cultivated crop as in the case of grapes, figs, dates and other fruits. For the same reason the “honey” offered as firstfruits when Hezekiah motivated the people to support the priesthood was undoubtedly the juice or syrup of fruits.—2 Chron. 31:5.

A LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

The description of Palestine as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” often repeated in the Scriptures, is apt, for not only was the product of bees abundant, but also the syrup of fruits. (Ex. 3:8; Lev. 20:24; Deut. 11:9; Josh. 5:6, and other references) The latter is apparently referred to as being an item of trade exchanged for Tyre’s merchandise.—Ezek. 27:2, 17; see BEE.

HOOK

A curved or sharply angled piece of metal or other material, sometimes barbed.

Fishhooks were known to ancient fishermen. (Hab. 1:14, 15; Isa. 19:1, 6-8; Matt. 17:24-27) Butcher hooks are also mentioned in the Bible. (Amos 4:2) Gold hooks were used in the tabernacle to fasten together the two large sections of the embroidered linen covering, and copper hooks for the two sections of the goat’s hair covering. (Ex. 26:1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11; 36:13, 18; 39:33) The curtain between the Holy and the Most Holy was hung on hooks, evidently of gold (Ex. 26:31-33) as was also the screen to the tabernacle entrance.—Ex. 26:36, 37.

Hooks were employed for leading animals, particularly wild beasts. (Ezek. 19:3, 4, 6, 9) Human captives were sometimes led by hooks either in the lips, nose or tongue. An Assyrian pictorial representation shows the king holding three captives by cords fastened to hooks in their lips while he blinds one of them with a spear. It was, therefore, understandable to King Sennacherib of Assyria when Jehovah spoke figuratively to him through the prophet Isaiah: “I shall certainly put my hook in your nose and my bridle between your lips, and I shall indeed lead you back by the way by which you have come.”—2 Ki. 19:20, 21, 28; Isa. 37:29.

While an ordinary fishhook could never hold mighty Leviathan (evidently the crocodile) (Job 41:1), a large hook might be put through its jaws. The historian Herodotus stated that the Egyptians used a hook to capture the crocodile and draw it out of the water. (Book II, sec. 70) Jehovah figuratively spoke to Pharaoh of Egypt, in whom Israel had foolishly trusted for support against Babylon: “I will put hooks in your jaws . . . And I will bring you up out of the midst of your Nile canals . . . And I will abandon you to the wilderness, . . . And all the inhabitants of Egypt will have to know that I am Jehovah, for the reason that they proved to be, as a support, a reed to the house of Israel.” (Ezek. 29:1-7) Jehovah also foretold that he would put hooks in the jaws of “Gog of the land of Magog” and would bring him forth to the final attack upon God’s people and to his own execution.—Ezek. 38:1-4; 39:1-4.

HOOPOE

[Heb., du·khi·phathʹ].

The identification of this bird with the “lapwing,” as in the Authorized Version (Lev. 11:19; Deut. 14:18), is no longer followed by modern translations. The translators of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate understood it to be the “hoopoe” (eʹpops, LXX; upupa, Vg), and the Syrian and Arabic names for the hoopoe (Syr., qaqupha; Arab., hudhudu) also confirm this identification.

Some believe the Hebrew name for the hoopoe (du·khi·phathʹ) is intended to represent the peculiar, somewhat dovelike cry of the bird, as is clearly the case with its name in the other languages mentioned. Others would derive the name from the Hebrew word meaning “to pound, beat,” noting the hoopoe’s practice of drumming its beak on the ground.

About the size of a slender pigeon, the hoopoe is a somewhat cinnamon-colored bird, distinctively marked with alternate broad bars of white and black along its wings and back. Its most conspicuous feature is a crest of plumes, each feather ending in a white border tipped with black, the crest running from the base of the long, slender curved bill all the way to the back of the bird’s head. When expanded, the crest forms a handsome semicircular crown, and the bird raises and lowers it like a fan. But though colorfully and conspicuously dressed, the hoopoe is notably unclean in home and habits. Its diet of insects is obtained by probing with its sharp bill not only in the ground but also in dunghills and other filth. The nest, consisting of a hole in some bank, hollow tree, or wall, gives off a disagreeable odor produced by secretions of the bird’s oil glands, and also becomes foul-smelling due to the bird’s failure to clean the nest of excrement. Thus, while not a bird of prey nor an eater of carrion, the hoopoe was included among the birds listed as unclean for food in the Mosaic law.—Lev. 11:13, 19; Deut. 14:12, 18.

The hoopoe also has an unsavory connection with superstition and magical practices. Its head was anciently used in witches’ charms and representations thereof were often carved on the top of diviners’ rods. By the Arabs the bird was considered as endowed with the ability to locate underground water, evidently due to its manner of stalking about and bending its head downward while opening and closing its crest, actually done in search of food.

Found throughout southern Asia and Africa and parts of Europe, the hoopoe migrates to Palestine about the first of March and remains until the approach of winter, when it heads southward to Egypt and other parts of northern Africa.

[Picture on page 786]

Hoopoe, a colorful bird with unclean habits

HOPE

1. Trust, reliance. 2. a. Desire accompanied with expectation of what is desired or belief that it is attainable. b. One on whom hopes are centered. c. A source of hopeful expectation; promise. d. Something that is hoped for; an object of hope.

NO REAL HOPE WITHOUT GOD

True hope, as spoken of in the Bible, is superior to mere desire, which may have no foundation or prospect of fulfillment. It is also better than mere expectation, because that which is expected is not