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The process of salvation begins in the heart by the believing reception of the testimony of God, while the rejection of that testimony hardens the heart (Psalm 95:8; Proverbs 28:14; 2 Chronicles 36:13). “Hardness of heart evidences itself by light views of sin; partial acknowledgment and confession of it; pride and conceit; ingratitude; unconcern about the word and ordinances of God; inattention to divine providences; stifling convictions of conscience; shunning reproof; presumption, and general ignorance of divine things.”
•HEARTH Hebrews ah (Jeremiah 36:22, 23; R.V., “brazier”), meaning a large pot like a brazier, a portable furnace in which fire was kept in the king’s winter apartment.
Hebrews kiyor (Zechariah 12:6; R.V., “pan”), a fire-pan.
Hebrews moqed (Psalm 102:3; R.V., “fire-brand”), properly a fagot. Hebrews yaqud (Isaiah 30:14), a burning mass on a hearth.
•HEATH Hebrews ‘arar, (Jeremiah 17:6; 48:6), a species of juniper called by the Arabs by the same name (‘arar), the Juniperus sabina or savin. “Its gloomy, stunted appearance, with its scale-like leaves pressed close to its gnarled stem, and cropped close by the wild goats, as it clings to the rocks about Petra, gives great force to the contrast suggested by the prophet, between him that trusteth in man, naked and destitute, and the man that trusteth in the Lord, flourishing as a tree planted by the waters” (Tristram, Natural History of the Bible).
•HEATHEN (Hebrews plural goyum). At first the word goyim denoted generally all the nations of the world (Genesis 18:18; comp. Galatians 3:8). The Jews afterwards became a people distinguished in a marked manner from the other goyim. They were a separate people (Leviticus 20:23;