NISAN, a month of the Hebrews, answering to our March, and which sometimes takes from February or April, according to the course of the moon. It was made the first month of the sacred year, at the coming out of Egypt, Exod. xii, 2; and it was the seventh month of the civil year. By Moses it is called Abib. The name Nisan was introduced only since the time of Ezra, and the return from the captivity of Babylon.
NISROCH, a god of the Assyrians. Sennacherib was killed by two of his sons, while he was paying his adorations in the temple of this deity, 2 Kings xix, 37; Isaiah xxxvii, 38. It is uncertain who this god was.
NITRE, נתר, Prov. xxv, 20; Jer. ii, 22. This is not the same that we call nitre, or saltpetre, but a native salt of a different kind, distinguished among naturalists by the name of natrum. The natrum of the ancients was an earthy alkaline salt. It was found in abundance separated from the water of the lake Natron in Egypt. It rises from the bottom of the lake to the top of the water, and is there condensed by the heat of the sun into the hard and dry form in which it is sold. This salt thus scummed off is the same in all respects with the Smyrna soap earth. Pliny, Matthiolus, and Agricola, have described it to us: Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, and others, mention its uses. It is also found in great plenty in Sindy, a province in the inner part of Asia, and in many other parts of the east; and might be had in any quantities. The learned Michaëlis plainly demonstrates, from the nature of the thing and the context, that this fossil and natural alkali must be that which the Hebrews called nether. Solomon must mean the same when he compares the effect which unseasonable mirth has upon a man in affliction to the action of vinegar upon nitre, Prov. xxv, 20; for vinegar has no effect upon what we call nitre, but upon the alkali in question has a great effect, making it rise up in bubbles with much effervescence. It is of a soapy nature, and was used to take spots from clothes, and even from the face. Jeremiah alludes to this use of it, ii, 22.
NO, or NO-AMMON, a city of Egypt, supposed to be Thebes.
NOAH, the son of Lamech. Amidst the general corruption of the human race, Noah only was found righteous, Gen. vi, 9. He therefore found grace in the sight of the Lord,” and was directed for his preservation to make an ark, the shape and dimensions of which were prescribed by the Lord. In A. M. 1656, and in the six hundredth year of his age, Noah, by divine appointment, entered the ark with his family, and all the animals collected for the renewal of the world. (See [Deluge].) After the ark had stranded, and the earth was in a measure dried, Noah offered a burnt-sacrifice to the Lord, of the pure animals that were in the ark; and the Lord was pleased to accept of his offering, and to give him assurance that he would no more destroy the world by water, Genesis ix. He gave Noah power over all the brute creation, and permitted him to kill and eat of them, as of the herbs and fruits of the earth, except the blood, the use of which was prohibited. After the deluge Noah lived three hundred and fifty years; and the whole time of his life having been nine hundred and fifty years, he died, A. M. 2006. According to common opinion, he divided the earth among his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham Africa, and to Japheth Europe. Some will have it, that beside these three sons he had several others. St. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness, because before the deluge he was incessantly preaching and declaring to men, not only by his discourses, but by the building of the ark, in which he was employed a hundred and twenty years, that the cloud of divine vengeance was about to burst upon them. But his faithful ministry produced no effect, since, when the deluge came, it found mankind practising their usual enormities, Matt. xxiv, 37. Several learned men have observed that the Heathens confounded Saturn, Deucalion, Ogyges, the god Cœlus or Ouranus, Janus, Protheus, Prometheus, &c, with Noah. The fable of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha is manifestly drawn from the history of Noah. The rabbins pretend that God gave Noah and his sons certain general precepts, which contain, according to them, the natural duties which are common to all men indifferently, and the observation of which alone will be sufficient to save them. After the law of Moses was given, the Hebrews would not suffer any stranger to dwell in their country, unless he would conform to the precepts of Noah. In war, they put to death without quarter all who were ignorant of them. These precepts are seven in number: the first was against the worship of idols; the second, against blasphemy, and required to bless the name of God; the third, against murder; the fourth, against incest and all uncleanness; the fifth, against theft and rapine; the sixth required the administration of justice; the seventh was against eating flesh with life. But the antiquity of these precepts is doubted, since no mention of them is made in the Scripture, or in the writings of Josephus, or in Philo; and none of the ancient fathers knew any thing of them.
NOD, Land of, the country to which Cain withdrew after the murder of Abel. As the precise situation of this country cannot possibly be known, so it has given rise to much ingenious speculation. All that we are told of it is, that it was on the east of Eden,” or, as it may be rendered, before Eden;” which very country of Eden is no sure guide for us, as the situation of that also is disputed. But, be it on the higher or lower Euphrates, (see [Eden],) the land of Nod which stood before it with respect to the place where Moses wrote, may still preserve the curse of barrenness passed on it for Cain’s sake, namely, in the deserts of Syria or Arabia. The Chaldee interpreters render the word Nod, not as the proper name of a country, but as an appellative applied to Cain himself, signifying a vagabond or fugitive, and read, He dwelt a fugitive in the land.” But the Hebrew reads expressly, He dwelt in the land of Nod.”
NONCONFORMISTS, dissenters from the church of England; but the term applies more particularly to those ministers who were ejected from their livings by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; the number of whom, according to Dr. Calamy, was nearly two thousand; and to the laity who adhered to them. The celebrated Mr. Locke says, Bartholomew-day (the day fixed by the Act of Uniformity) was fatal to our church and religion, by throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines, who could not come up to this and other things in that act. And it is worth your knowledge, that so great was the zeal in carrying on this church affair, and so blind was the obedience required, that if you compare the time of passing the act with the time allowed for the clergy to subscribe the book of Common Prayer thereby established, you shall plainly find, it could not be printed and distributed, so as one man in forty could have seen and read the book before they did so perfectly assent and consent thereto.”
By this act, the clergy were required to subscribe, ex animo, [sincerely,] their assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer,” which had never before been insisted on, so rigidly as to deprive them of their livings and livelihood. Several other acts were passed about this time, very oppressive both to the clergy and laity. In the preceding year 1661, the Corporation Act incapacitated all persons from offices of trust and honour in a corporation, who did not receive the sacrament in the established church. The Conventicle Act, in 1663 and 1670, forbade the attendance at conventicles; that is, at places of worship other than the establishment, where more than five adults were present beside the resident family; and that under penalties of fine and imprisonment by the sentence of magistrates without a jury. The Oxford Act of 1665 banished nonconforming ministers five miles from any corporate town sending members to parliament, and prohibited them from keeping or teaching schools. The Test Act of the same year required all persons, accepting any office under government, to receive the sacrament in the established church.
Such were the dreadful consequences of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed that near eight thousand died in prison in the reign of Charles II. It is said that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those who had suffered between Charles II. and the revolution, which amounted to sixty thousand. The same persecutions were carried on in Scotland; and there, as well as in England, numbers, to avoid the persecution, left their country. But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the dissenters, they were not extirpated. Their very persecution was in their favour. The infamous character of their informers and persecutors; their piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had influence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the established church, which several clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting church, and took their lot among them. King William coming to the throne, the famous Toleration Act passed, by which they were exempted from suffering the penalties above mentioned, and permission was given them to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. In the reign of George III., the Act for the Protection of Religious Worship superseded the Act of Toleration, by still more liberal provisions in favour of religious liberty; and in the last reign the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed.
NOPH, Memphis, a celebrated city of Egypt, and, till the time of the Ptolemies, who removed to Alexandria, the residence of the ancient kings of Egypt. It stood above the dividing of the river Nile, where the Delta begins. Toward the south of this city stood the famous pyramids, two of which were esteemed the wonders of the world; and in this city was fed the ox Apis, which Cambyses slew, in contempt of the Egyptians who worshipped it as a deity. The kings of Egypt took much pleasure in adorning this city; and it continued in all its beauty till the Arabians made a conquest of Egypt under the Caliph Omar. The general who took it built another city near it, named Fustal, merely because his tent had been a long time set up in that place; and the Fatimite caliphs, when they became masters of Egypt, added another to it, which is known to us at this day by the name of Grand Cairo. This occasioned the utter decay of Memphis, and led to the fulfilment of the prophecy, that it should be waste and without inhabitant.” The prophets often speak of this city, and foretel the miseries it was to suffer from the kings of Chaldea and Persia, Isaiah xix, 13; Jer. xliv, 1; xlvi, 14, 19; Hosea ix, 6; Ezek. xxx, 13, 16.