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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMcClintock Biblical Encyclopedia: Bill (2)
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( ñֵôֶø , se'pher, âéâëßïí ), any thing written, and usually rendered book. The passage in Job_31:35, " Oh! that one would hear me! .... that mine adversary had written a book," would be more properly rendered, " that mine adversary had given me a written accusation," or, in modern phraseology, "a bill of indictment." In other places we have the word "bill," as "bill of divorcement" (Deu_24:1; Deu_24:3; Isa_50:1; Jer_3:8; Mat_19:7; Mar_10:4) SEE DIVORCE, and in Jer_32:10-16; Jer_32:44, " the evidence," or, as in the margin, " the book," which there implies a legal conveyance of landed property.
In the New Testament, the word ãñÜììá (properly a written mark) is translated " bill" in the parable of the unjust steward (Luk_16:6-7). Here, too, a legal instrument is meant, as the lord's " debtors" are presumed to have been tenants who paid their rents in kind. The steward, it would appear, sought their good-will, not merely by lowering the existing claim for the year, but by granting a new contract, under which the tenants were permanently to pay less than they had previously done. He directed the tenants to write out the contracts, but doubtless gave them validity by signing them himself. This, like the Hebrew term, signifies a "letter" or written communication (1Ki_21:8; 2Ki_5:5; 2Ki_10:1; 2Ki_19:14; 2Ki_20:12; 2Ch_32:17; Est_1:22; Est_3:13; Est_8:5, etc. Act_28:21; Gal_6:11).