Nitre

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

נתר ,  Proverbs 25:20;  Jeremiah 2:22 . This is not the same that we call nitre, or salt-petre, but a native salt of a different kind, distinguished among naturalists by the name of natrum. The natrum of the ancients was an earthy alkaline salt. It was found in abundance separated from the water of the lake Natron in Egypt. It rises from the bottom of the lake to the top of the water, and is there condensed by the heat of the sun into the hard and dry form in which it is sold. This salt thus scummed off is the same in all respects with the Smyrna soap earth. Pliny, Matthiolus, and Agricola, have described it to us: Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, and others, mention its uses. It is also found in great plenty in Sindy, a province in the inner part of Asia, and in many other parts of the east; and might be had in any quantities. The learned Michaelis plainly demonstrates, from the nature of the thing and the context, that this fossil and natural alkali must be that which the Hebrews called nether. Solomon must mean the same when he compares the effect which unseasonable mirth has upon a man in affliction to the action of vinegar upon nitre,   Proverbs 25:20; for vinegar has no effect upon what we call nitre, but upon the alkali in question has a great effect, making it rise up in bubbles with much effervescence. It is of a soapy nature, and was used to take spots from clothes, and even from the face. Jeremiah alludes to this use of it,  Jeremiah 2:22 .

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Nitre. Mention of this substance is made in  Proverbs 25:20 - "and as vinegar upon nitre" - and in  Jeremiah 2:26. The article denoted is not that which we now understand by the term, Nitre , that is, nitrate of Potassa - "saltpetre" - but the nitrum of the Latins, and the natron , or Native Carbonate Of Soda , of modern chemistry. Natron was, and still is, used by the Egyptians for washing linen. The value of soda in this respect is well known. This explains the passage in Jeremiah. Natron is found in great abundance, in the well-known soda lakes of Egypt.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

NITRE , in its modern usage, denotes saltpetre , nitrate of potash, but the nitron or nitrum of the ancients was a different substance, natron , carbonate of soda. ‘Nitre’ occurs twice in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] . In   Proverbs 25:20 the effect of songs on a heavy heart is compared to the action of vinegar upon ‘nitre’ (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘soda’). Vinegar has no effect upon saltpetre, but with carbonate of soda it produces effervescence. In   Jeremiah 2:22 ‘nitre’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘lye’) is referred to as a cleansing agent. Here, again, natron rather than modern nitre suits the connexion.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

(See Fuller .)  Proverbs 25:20, "as vinegar upon nitre so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart." To the feelings of the heavy at heart songs are as grating and irritative as acid poured on alkali. Nitre is carbonate of soda or potash; mixed with oil it was used as "soap" ( Borit ):  Jeremiah 2:22.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Not the substance used in making gunpowder, but natron, a mineral alkali composed of several salts of soda. It effervesces with vinegar,  Proverbs 25:28 , and is still used in washing,  Jeremiah 2:22 . Combined with oil, it makes a hard soap. It is found deposited in, or floating upon, certain lakes west of the Delta of Egypt.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The natron of the moderns, not what is now called nitre, which is saltpetre. As vinegar upon natron or alkali (which would effervesce and evaporate) so is the unsuitableness of singing mirthful songs to a heavy heart.  Proverbs 25:20 . It is a mineral alkali, and with oil is made into soap.  Jeremiah 2:22 .

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Nitre.  Proverbs 25:20. This is, no doubt, the natron found abundantly in certain Egyptian lakes, 50 miles west of Cairo. The Egyptians use it in bread and for soap; also, it is said, mixed with vinegar as a cure for toothache. The contrariety between these two ingredients illustrates the place referred to.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) See Niter.

(2): ( n.) A white crystalline semitransparent salt; potassium nitrate; saltpeter. See Saltpeter.

(3): ( n.) Native sodium carbonate; natron.

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

 Jeremiah 2:22 (b) This is an alcohol used to remove grease and stains but it could not remove the marks of sin.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Proverbs 25:20 Jeremiah 2:22

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( נֶתֶר , Ne ' Ther, from נָתִר , to tremble; Sept. Ἀσύμφορον ,  Proverbs 25:20; Νίτρον ,  Jeremiah 2:22; Attic Λίτρον , Plato, Tinceus, 60, D), a word occurring in Scripture only in the two places above referred to, where the substance in question is described as effervescing:with vinegar, and as being used in washing; neither of which particulars applies to what is now, by a misappropriation of this ancient name, called " ‘ nitre," and which in modern usage means the saltpetre of commerce, but they both apply to the Natr ' On, or true Nitrumn of the ancients. The similarity of the names which is observable in this case is regarded by Gesenius as of great weight in a production of the East, the name of which usually passed with the article itself into Greece. Both Greek and Roman writers describe Natron by the words given in the Sept. and Vulg. Jerome, in his note on  Proverbs 25:20, considers this to be the substance intended. Much has been written on the subject of the nitrum of the ancients; it will be enough to refer the reader to Beckmann, who. ( Hist. Of Inventions, 2:482, Bohn's ed.) has devoted a chapter to this subject, and to the authorities mentioned in the notes. It is uncertain at what time the English term Nitre first came to be used for Saltpetre, but our translators no doubt understood thereby the carbonate of soda, for Nitre is so used by Holland in his translation of Pliny (31:10) in contradistinction to saltpetre, which he gives as the marginal explanation of aphronitrum. The word nether thus might be more properly rendered natron, a substance totally different from our nitre, i.e. nitrate of potash or" saltpetre."

The original word nether is what is known among chemists as "carbonate of soda." It is found native in Syria and India, and appears there as the produce of the soil. In Tripoli it is found in crystalline incrustations of from one third to half an inch thick. Captains Irby and Mangles found lumps of this salt on the south-east shore of the Dead Sea. Natron, though found in many parts of the East, has ever been one of the distinguishing natural productions of Egypt. Hasselquist (Trav. p. 275) says that natrum is dug out of a pit or mine near Mantura, in Egypt, and is mixed with limestone, and is of a whitish brown color. The Egyptians used it (1) to put into bread instead of yeast, (2) instead of soap, and (3) as a cure for the toothache, being mixed with vinegar. Strabo and Pliny mention two lakes in the valley of the Nile, beyond memphis, where it was found in great abundance (Strabo, Geogr. [Oxf. 1807], xvii, p. 1139; Pliny, Hist. Vat. v. 9), and describe the natural and manufactured nitrum of Egypt (ib. 31:10). This substance, according to Herodotus, was used by the Egyptians in the process of embalming (2:76, 77). The principal natron lakes now found in Egypt, six in number, are situate in the barren valley of Bahr-bela- ma, "the Waterless Sea," about fifty miles west of Cairo, where it both floats as a whitish scum upon the water, and is found deposited at the bottom in a thick incrustation, after the water is evaporated by the heat of summer. It is a natural mineral alkali, composed of the carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda, derived from the soil of that region. Forskal says that it is known by the name of atrun or natrun, that it effervesces with vinegar, and is used as soap in washing linen, and by the bakers as yeast, and in cookery to assist in boiling meat, etc. (Flora Egyptiaco-Arabica [Hauniae, 1775], p. 45, 46; see Paulus, Sannmlung. v. 182 sq.). Combined with oil it makes a harder and firmer soap than the vegetable alkali. (See Soap).

The application of the name nitre to saltpetre seems accounted for by the fact that the knowledge of natron, the true nitre, was lost for many centuries in England, till revived by the Hon. R. Boyle, who says he "had had some of it brought to him from Egypt" ( Memoirs For A History Of Mineral Waters [Lond. 1864-5], p. 86). See an interesting paper in which this is stated in the Philosophical Transactions, abridged, 1809, 13:216, etc.; and for a full description of the modern merchandise, uses, etc., of the natron of Egypt, see Sonini, Travels (Paris), vol. i, ch. xix; Andreossi, Memoire sur la Vallee des Lacs de Natron Decade Egyptienne, No. 4, vol. ii, p. 276, etc.; Berthollet, Observations sur le Natron (ibid.), p. 310; Descript. de I'Egypte, 21:205; Beckmann. Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Erfindun en, 4:15 sq.; Michaelis, De Nitro Hebrceor. in Conmment. Societ. Regal. Praslect. 1:166; and Supplem. ad Lex. Hebraic. p. 1704; Shaw, Travels, 2d ed. p. 479; Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 930. (See Alkali).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

nı̄´tẽr ( נתר , nether  ; νίτρον , nı́tron ): Nitre as used in the King James Version does not correspond to the present use of that term. Nitre or niter is now applied to sodium or potassium nitrate. The writer has in his collection a specimen of sodium carbonate, called in Arabic naṭrûn , which was taken from the extensive deposits in Lower Egypt where it is found as a deposit underneath a layer of common salt. Similar deposits are found in Syria and Asia Minor. This is probably the "nitre" of the Bible. the American Standard Revised Version has rendered niter "lye" in   Jeremiah 2:22 , and "soda" in  Proverbs 25:20 . Soda or lye has been used as a cleansing agent from earliest times. It effervesces energetically, when treated with an acid; hence, the comparison in  Proverbs 25:20 of the heavy-hearted man roiled by the sound of singing to the sizzling of soda on which vinegar has been poured. See Vinegar .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Nitre occurs in;; where the substance in question is described as effervescing with vinegar, and as being used in washing; neither of which particulars applies to what is now, by a misappropriation of this ancient name, called 'nitre,' and which in modern usage means the saltpeter of commerce, but they both apply to the natron, or true nitrum of the ancients. Natron, though found in many parts of the East, has ever been one of the distinguishing natural productions of Egypt. The principal natron lakes now found in that country, six in number, are situate in a barren valley about thirty miles westward of the Delta, where it both floats as a whitish scum upon the water, and is found deposited at the bottom in a thick encrustation, after the water is evaporated by the heat of summer. It is a natural mineral alkali, composed of the carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda, derived from the soil of that region. Forskal says that it is known by the name atrun, or natrun, that it effervesces with vinegar, and is used as soap in washing linen, and by the bakers as yeast, and in cookery to assist in boiling meat, etc. Combined with oil it makes a harder and firmer soap than the vegetable alkali.