Chance (Hastings' Dictionary)

The 'reign of law' is no discovery of the 19th century. It was an accepted, even an axiomatic, fact to the ancient Hebrew through- out the whole course of his history. And more than that, the law was the immediate expression of a personal will, not the fortuitous harmony of working forces. ' Chance,' therefore, has scant recognition in OT or in NT. Neither avvrvxla nor Tiixri occurs in NT ; and tvxt) only twice, avvTv^la. not once, in LXX. The first occurrence of rtix'? in LXX is Gn 30" /tai ilinv Kda. "&v ti'>xb, ' and Leah said, With fortune ! ' following the kethibh i33 beghAdh (in pause), which RV also follows, 'and Leah said. Fortunate ! ' The other occurrence of TvxT} is Is 65" eroi/id^oi'Tes ry bai^iovii^ Tft^irei^av <al w\T}poOvTes Ty r&xji Kipafffia^ ' preparing for the demon a table, and filling up for fortune a mixed drink.' Here Tir^Tj stands for Heb. 'jd Mint, which most scholars identify with Venus. But Siaiibviov stands for "i; Gad, an old Semitic name for the god of Fortune, found in inscriptions, proper names, and common in Syr. = ruxn- See Gad. Apart from the passages above, the nearest approacn to a recog- nition of ' chance ' is in 1 S 6', where the Philistines devise a method of discovering whether the calamities they had suffered while the ark was in their midst were due to tlie presence of the ark, or whether ' it was a chance that happened to us ' ("n.pP, LXX aivirTwim) ; but here, as in the other places nhere the same Heb. is used (Dt 23'° ' that which ohanceth him,' Ru 2^, 1 S 20=«, Ec 2^- '» 3""«' 9, »), the idea is not something independent of J", but something unexpected by man. The prevalent Hebrew mind on the matter is expressed in the proverb (16^^) — ' The lot is cast into the lap ; But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.' The other places in which ' chance ' occurs are these: Ec 9" 'time and c. happeneth to them all' (I'Jp, elsewhere only in 1 K 5 and tr. 'occurrent,' not ' chance,' but external incident or event ; cf. 2 Es 10'" ' these things whicli have chanced ') ; Lk 10" ' by c. there came down a certain |)riest that way' (avyKvpla, again not 'cliance,' but 'con- currence' or 'coincidence,' see Plummer in lor.)- and so 1 Co 15" ' it may c. of wheat, or of some otlier grain' (d ti^oi ; i.e. we cannot tell which ; cf. 14'° d Ti'-xoi, 'it may be') ; while in Dt 22" ' If a bird's nest c. to be before thee in the way,' and 2 S 1° ' As I happened by c. upon Mount Gillioa,' the Heb. is simply ' come upon ' or ' meet ' (n'JC). For the verb 'c.' = turn out (1 Co 15") cf. Cover- dale's tr. of Ph 1" ' "Ve same shal chaunce to my Saluacion.' J. Hastings.