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•CHAPITER the ornamental head or capital of a pillar. Three Hebrew words are so rendered. (1.) Cothereth (1 Kings 7:16; 2 Kings 25:17; 2 Chronicles 4:12), meaning a “diadem” or “crown.” (2.) Tzepheth (2 Chronicles 3:15). (3.) Rosh (Exodus 36:38; 38:17, 19, 28), properly a “head” or “top.”
•CHAPTER The several books of the Old and New Testaments were from an early time divided into chapters. The Pentateuch was divided by the ancient Hebrews into 54 parshioth or sections, one of which was read in the synagogue every Sabbath day (Acts. 13:15). These sections were afterwards divided into 669 sidrim or orders of unequal length. The Prophets were divided in somewhat the same manner into haphtaroth or passages.
In the early Latin and Greek versions of the Bible, similar divisions of the several books were made. The New Testament books were also divided into portions of various lengths under different names, such as titles and heads or chapters.
In modern times this ancient example was imitated, and many attempts of the kind were made before the existing division into chapters was fixed. The Latin Bible published by Cardinal Hugo of St. Cher in A.D. 1240 is generally regarded as the first Bible that was divided into our present chapters, although it appears that some of the chapters were fixed as early as A.D. 1059. This division into chapters came gradually to be adopted in the published editions of the Hebrew, with some few variations, and of the Greek Scriptures, and hence of other versions.
•CHARASHIM craftsmen, a valley named in 1 Chronicles 4:14. In Nehemiah 11:35 the Hebrew word is rendered “valley of craftsmen” (R.V. marg., Geha-rashim). Nothing is known of it.
•CHARGER a bowl or deep dish. The silver vessels given by the heads of the tribes for the services of the tabernacle are so named (Numbers 7:13,