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Zadok
[People]Zadok was a priest in the time of David and Solomon. He anointed Solomon as king, and Scripture records his descendants as the family that carried on the priesthood of the Jerusalem temple.
Hur
[People]Hur was an Israelite leader who served alongside Moses and Aaron during the Exodus. He is best known for holding up Moses' hands with Aaron during the battle against Amalek.
Hobab
[People]Hobab is a Midianite who appears in Numbers 10 and Judges 4. When Israel set out from the Wilderness of Sinai, Moses asked him to come along as a guide. Interpreters disagree on whether he was Moses' brother-in-law or his father-in-law.
Ahimelech
[People]Ahimelech was the priest of Nob during the reign of King Saul. He was put to death at Saul's command for giving the fleeing David the holy bread and the sword of Goliath.
Darius
[People]Darius is the name of several kings of the Persian period mentioned in the Bible. The best known are Darius king of Persia, who permitted the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and Darius the Mede, who had Daniel cast into the lions' den.
Laban
[People]Laban was an Aramean of Haran who appears in the book of Genesis. The brother of Rebekah, the uncle of Jacob, and the father of Leah and Rachel, he kept Jacob in his household for twenty years.
Sanballat
[People]Sanballat was a Horonite in the Book of Nehemiah who repeatedly obstructed the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian exile as they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
Abiathar
[People]Abiathar was a priest in the days of Saul and David. The sole survivor of the massacre at Nob, he served David, but when Solomon came to the throne he was removed from the priesthood for having sided with Adonijah.
Shemaiah
[People]Shemaiah was a prophet in the reign of Rehoboam, the first king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He delivered the word of God that prevented war with the northern tribes. When Shishak king of Egypt invaded, he brought God's warning to the leaders of Judah.
Nabal
[People]Nabal was a wealthy man from Maon, described in 1 Samuel 25, who insultingly refused David's request. He escaped David's retaliation through the intercession of his wife Abigail but died about ten days later.
Nob
[Bible]Nob was a town in the territory of Benjamin where priests lived during the reign of Saul. There David received the showbread and the sword of Goliath, and there the priests were massacred at Saul's command.
Laodicea
[Bible]Laodicea was a city in the region of Phrygia in Asia Minor that appears in Colossians and Revelation. It was the home of one of the seven churches of Asia, which Revelation rebukes as "lukewarm."
Jeroboam II
[People]Jeroboam II was the fourth king of the Jehu dynasty in the northern kingdom of Israel and the son of Joash. He recovered much lost territory and presided over a period of prosperity, but the contemporary prophets Amos and Hosea condemned the injustice and false worship that lay beneath that prosperity.
Hillel
[People]Hillel was a Jewish teacher of the Law, active from the late first century BC to the early first century AD, and the founder of the School of Hillel. He is known for the prosbul, a legal instrument connected with the release of debts in the sabbatical year, and for a teaching that resembles the Golden Rule.
Lawyer (New Testament)
[Bible]In the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Luke, a lawyer was an expert who studied and interpreted the Law of Moses. The best-known example is the lawyer who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, which prompted the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Heman
[People]Heman is an Old Testament figure who appears in 1 and 2 Chronicles as a Levite worship leader in charge of temple music in the time of David. The same name also appears in the title of Psalm 88 and in 1 Kings 4.
Zeruiah
[People]Zeruiah was the daughter of Jesse, the sister of David, and the mother of Joab, the commander of David's army, and of the warriors Abishai and Asahel. She appears in Scripture chiefly through the expression "the son(s) of Zeruiah."
Naamah
[People]Naamah was a wife of Solomon and the mother of Rehoboam, king of Judah. First Kings and Second Chronicles identify her as an Ammonite. A different woman with the same name appears in Genesis.
Jehoiada
[People]Jehoiada was a priest in the southern kingdom of Judah during the reigns of Athaliah and Joash. When Athaliah killed the royal family, he hid the young Joash, who had survived, in the temple and raised him there. He later made Joash king and renewed the covenant with the people.
Jahaziel
[People]Jahaziel was a Levite in the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah. When a coalition of Moabites and Ammonites invaded, he was moved by the Spirit and prophesied that "the battle is not yours, but God's" (2 Chronicles 20).