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MATTOCK (1.) Hebrews ma’eder, an instrument for dressing or pruning a vineyard (Isaiah 7:25); a weeding-hoe.

(2.) Hebrews mahareshah (1 Samuel 13:1), perhaps the ploughshare or coulter.

(3.) Hebrews herebh, marg. of text (2 Chronicles 34:6). Authorized Version, “with their mattocks,” marg. “mauls.” The Revised Version renders “in their ruins,” marg. “with their axes.” The Hebrew text is probably corrupt.

MAUL an old name for a mallet, the rendering of the Hebrew mephits (Proverbs 25:18), properly a war-club.

MAZZAROTH prognostications, found only Job 38:32, probably meaning “the twelve signs” (of the zodiac), as in the margin (comp. 2 Kings 23:5).

MEADOW (1.) Hebrews ha’ahu (Genesis 41:2, 18), probably an Egyptain word transferred to the Hebrew; some kind of reed or water-plant. In the Revised Version it is rendered “reed-grass”, i.e., the sedge or rank grass by the river side.

(2.) Hebrews ma’areh (Judges 20:33), pl., “meadows of Gibeah” (R.V., after the LXX., “Maareh-geba”). Some have adopted the rendering “after Gibeah had been left open.” The Vulgate translates the word “from the west.”

MEAH an hundred, a tower in Jersalem on the east wall (Nehemiah 3:1) in the time of Nehemiah.

MEALS are at the present day “eaten from a round table little higher than a stool, guests sitting cross-legged on mats or small carpets in a circle, and