BAR-JESUS

or, according to some copies, BAR-JEU, was a Jewish magician in the island of Crete, Acts xiii, 6. St. Luke calls him Elymas. He was with the pro-consul Sergius Paulus, who, sending for Paul and Barnabas, desired to hear the word of God. Bar-Jesus endeavouring to hinder the pro-consul from embracing Christianity, Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, “set his eyes upon him, and said, O full of all subtilty and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousne , wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season;” which took place immediately. The pro-consul, who saw this miracle, was converted. Origen and Chrysostom think that Elymas, or Bar-Jesus, was converted likewise; and that St. Paul speedily restored his sight. BARLEY, שערה , Exod. ix, 31; Lev. xxvii, 16, ; a well-known kind of grain. It derives its Hebrew name from the long hairy beard which grows upon the ear. Pliny, on the testimony of Menander, says that barley was the most ancient aliment of mankind. In Palestine the barley was sown about October, and reaped in the end of March, just after the pa over. In Egypt the barley harvest was later; for when the hail fell there, Exodus ix, 31, a few days before the pa over, the flax and barley were bruised and destroyed: for the flax was at its full growth, and the barley began to form its green ears; but the wheat, and more backward grain, were not damaged, because they were only in the blade, and the hail bruised the young shoots which produce the ears. The rabbins sometimes called barley the food of beasts, because in reality they fed their cattle with it, 1 Kings iv, 28; and from Homer and other ancient writers we learn, that barley was given to horses. The Hebrews, however, frequently used barley bread, as we find by several pa ages of Scripture: for example, David’s friends brought to him in his flight wheat, barley, flour, , 2 Sam. xvii, 28. Solomon sent wheat, barley, oil, and wine, to the labourers King Hiram had furnished him, 2 Chron. ii, 15. Elijah had a present made him, of twenty barley loaves, and corn in the husk, 2 Kings iv, 22. And, by miraculously increasing the five barley loaves, Christ fed a multitude of about five you sand, John vi, 8–10. The jealousy-offering, in the Levitical institution, was to be barley meal, Num. v, 15. The common mincha, or offering, was of fine wheat flour, Lev. ii, 1; but this was of barley, a meaner grain, probably to denote the vile condition of the person in whose behalf it was offered. For which reason, also, there was no oil or frankincense permitted to be offered with it. Sometimes barley is put for a low, contemptible reward or price. So the false prophets are charged with seducing the people for handfuls of barley, and morsels of bread, Ezek. xiii, 19. Hosea bought his emblematic bride for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley, Hosea iii, 2.