Barachel (Hastings' Dictionary)

Only in .Job 322-«. the father of Elihu, described as ' the Uuzite,' probably a descendant of Buz, second son of MJcah and Nahor, Gn 22'-'. See Buz. W. T. Davison. BARAK (p-!5, BapdK, 'lightning-flash.' The name is found in Punic, Barcas, surname of Hamilcar ; Saba'an, zpiz ; Palmyrene, pin ; de Vogii^, Syrie CentraU, lxx>'i. 2 ; Ledrain, Diet, des Noms Projires Palmyr. 18S7, s.v.), son of Abinoam ; his history is recorded in Jg 4 and 5.

He was summoned by Deborah to be her ally in the struggle against the Canaanites. He dwelt in Kedesh-naphtali (Jg 4"), and was probably a member of the tribe of Issachar (5"). Hence he belonged to the district which had suffered most at the hands of the Canaanites : perhaps he had been actually their prisoner.* He receives from Deborah the plan of the campaign ; he is to move his troops, 10,000 men of Naphtali and Zebulun, in the direction of Mt.

Tabor, while she undertakes to attract Sisera's army towards the same place, and promises to deliver Sisera himself into his hands (4»- '). The writer does not regard B.'s urgent request that Deborah should go with him as worthy of blame ; nor is it necessary to interpret the prophetess' announcement that the honour of the expedition will not be his but a woman's, as a punishment for his hesitation (see Moore, Judges, p. 117). B.

collects his forces at Kedesh, moves to Tabor, and opens the engage- ment by a rush down the mountain (4"'- "■ ", cf. 5^') ; the battle is fought out at the foot. In ch. 5, on the other hand, the battle takes place along the right bank of the Kishon (w.^'"^'). "The Canaanites routed, B. pursues them to Harosheth, and then follows Sisera on foot, and comes up to the tent of Jael to find him lying dead, with a tent-peg through his temples. According to 5', B.

joined Deborah in singing the Ode of Triumph in ch. 5. In 1 S 12" the LXX, Pesh., and many modems read Barak for Bedan. B. thus becomes a repre- sentative leader along with Jerubbaal, Jephthah, and Samson (?) This agrees ■n-ith the impression as to B.'s position which we gain from Jg 5. G. A. Cooke. BARBARIAN St. Paul (1 Co 14"), wishing to emphasize the fact that the tongues with which those pos.

se8sed of the Holy Ghost spoke were not any intelli;;ible forms of speech, and that hence they required an interpreter also inspired, says, ' If then I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me.' Here he uses the word in its proper sense as one who spoke unintelligibly. So Homer, in whom the word first occurs, speaks of the Ka/ies pap^apdipuvoi (H. ii. 867), tlie Carians who spoke in a strange tongue.

Since the word Barbarh means in the earliest Arm. the language of a race or people, Homer may have meant the Carians who spoke a barbarh, that having been the Carian word for their national language. However this be, the word Barbarian means all through Gr. literature a man who did not speak Greek, especially the Medes, Persians, and Orientals generally.

The Romans or Latins were called Barbarians by the Greeks even to the latest days of the Byzantine Empire, and at first even called their own tongue Barbarian ; though from the Augustan age onward they excepted their own tongue. In the same way Pliilo, a Hellenized Jew, calls his native Heb. a barbarian tongue, and states ( Vita Mvsis, § 5, vol. ii. p.

138) that the Law was translated from Chaldaic into Greek because it was too valuable a treasure to be • Many tnnaluto 6" ' lead captive thy captors,' pointing 7f2V tor Ii;j5i. enjoyed by only the Barbaric half of the human race. In Col 3" St. Paul speaks of ' Greek and Jew, . . barbarian, Scythian. Yet the Scythians were typical barbarians. But the context proves that St. Paul is not here aiming at a scientific division of the human race. Elsewhere (e.g.

Ro 1'^) he adopts the current phraseology : ' I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians,' where the later phrase (v.'"), 'to the Jew first, and also to the Greek,' proves that, like PhUo, St. Paul con- ventionally called his own countrymen barbarians. The barbarous people in Malta (Ac 28') were probably old Phoenician settlers, and the epithet only means that they were not a Greek-speaking population. F. C. CONYBEABE.