December, Dictionary of the Bible.

Censer, a vessel in which incense was burned by the high priest, when he entered the holy of holies once a year (Lev. 16:1:2).
Centurion, a Roman commander or captain of a hundred med (Matt. 8:5, 8, 13; 27:545And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, (Matthew 8:5)
8The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. (Matthew 8:8)
13And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. (Matthew 8:13)
54Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. (Matthew 27:54); Luke 7:2, 62And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die. (Luke 7:2)
6Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: (Luke 7:6); Acts 10:1, 22; 21:32; 22:25, 26; 23:17, 23; 24:23; 27:1, 6, 11, 31, 43; 28:161There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, (Acts 10:1)
22And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee. (Acts 10:22)
32Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. (Acts 21:32)
25And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. (Acts 22:25‑26)
17Then Paul called one of the centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain: for he hath a certain thing to tell him. (Acts 23:17)
23And he called unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night; (Acts 23:23)
23And he commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him. (Acts 24:23)
1And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band. (Acts 27:1)
6And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy; and he put us therein. (Acts 27:6)
11Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul. (Acts 27:11)
31Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. (Acts 27:31)
43But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: (Acts 27:43)
16And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. (Acts 28:16)).
Chaff.—The threshing-floors of Palestine were usually on a hill top or other raised place, and when the corn had been trodden out by the oxen, or threshed, and was being winnowed, the refuse was driven aside by the wind; or when there was no wind blowing, a large fan was employed for the purpose. The heaps of chaff thus separated from the corn were afterward burned, the ashes being probably useful as manure for the land. Chaff is used in Scripture as a figure of the ungodly (Psa. 1:44The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. (Psalm 1:4); Matt. 3:1212Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:12)).
Chal’cedony is a semi-transparent stone of a species of quartz, usually a light brown, but often_ nearly white, and sometimes gray, yellow, green, or blue. It is found in most parts of the world, in irregular masses, forming cavities in trap rocks and granite. It is used in the East for cups, plates, and other articles. In Europe, it is made into snuff-boxes, knife-handles, buttons, and other small articles (Rev. 21:1919And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; (Revelation 21:19)).
Chaldœ’ans’ ―The name given to the inhabitants of Babylon (2 Kings 25; Isa. 13:19; 23:1319And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. (Isaiah 13:19)
13Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin. (Isaiah 23:13); Dan. 9:11In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; (Daniel 9:1)). They were a warlike and cruel people (Hab. 1:6-106For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs. 7They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. 8Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. 9They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. 10And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it. (Habakkuk 1:6‑10); Job 1:1717While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. (Job 1:17)), and supposed to have been originally a tribe of wild mountaineers from the neighborhood of Xenophon as brave and fond of freedom.
Nimrod was the founder of the kingdom of Babylon (Gen. 10:8,8And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. (Genesis 10:8) &c.). The next Babylonian ruler who is mentioned, is Amraphel (Gen. 14:11And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; (Genesis 14:1)), and then, after a long interval, we read of Berodach-baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:12, 1312At that time Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. 13And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and showed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. (2 Kings 20:12‑13)). This was about B.C. 713. About a hundred and twenty years after this, Nebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem, and becomes the “head of gold” (Dan. 2:37, 3837Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. (Daniel 2:37‑38)), taking that place of supremacy in the earth which Israel, if faithful to Jehovah, would have had (Deut. 28:1313And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: (Deuteronomy 28:13)). Thus, “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:2424And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Luke 21:24)) began, and will continue till “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” comes as Deliverer (Rom. 11:2626And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: (Romans 11:26)). The next king of Babylon we read of is Evil-merodach (2 Kings 25:2727And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison; (2 Kings 25:27)), who began his reign about B.C. 562. He delivered Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison, where lie had been for more than six and thirty years. Belshazzar (B.C. 538) was the last of the Chaldean kings. He was put to death in the seventeenth year of his reign by Cyrus, who established the Medo-Persian empire in the room of the Babylonish (Dan. 2:39; 7:539And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. (Daniel 2:39)
5And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. (Daniel 7:5)).
The religion of the Chaldees was the worship of the planets. Jupiter was worshipped as Bel, Mercury as Nebo, and Venus as Meni. Astrology was, of course, connected with such a worship, and the astronomical studies or the Chaldæans have made them famous. The magi, or wise men, appear to have been chiefly devoted to this science (Dan. 2:22Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. (Daniel 2:2); Matt. 2:11Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, (Matthew 2:1)). It is said that the high priest of Belus was called “the Peter” (which was an official, not a personal name), and his throne, “the Peter’s Chair.” His mitre, or crown, was formed like the head of a fish, the jaws coming to a point, and nearly meeting at the top exactly as in the Pope’s mitre at the Present day. The connection between the fish-head mitre and the worship of Eel is traceable to a vague tradition as to Noah, who is represented as having come out of the sea. Many nations of antiquity have a similar tradition, and with it the worship of a fish-god (see DAGON).
Chambers of Imagery. — These places of idolatrous worship are mentioned Ezekiel 8:1212Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth. (Ezekiel 8:12); and, to show how exactly the Israelites had wickedly copied the abominations of Egypt, the reader can compare Ezekiel’s description with the following extract from a work by Mr. Madden, describing the ancient temple of Edfon. He says, “Considerably below the surface of the adjoining building, my conductor pointed out to me a chink in an old wall, which he told me I should creep through on my hands and feet. The aperture was not two feet and a half high, and scarcely three feet and a ball’ broad. My companion had the courage to go first, thrusting in a lamp before him. I followed. The passage was so narrow that my mouth and nose were almost buried in the dust, and I was nearly suffocated. After proceeding about ten yards in utter darkness, the heat became excessive, the breathing was laborious, the perspiration poured down my face, and I would have given the world to have got out, but my companion, whose person I could not distinguish, though his voice was audible, called out to me to crawl a few feet further, and that I should find plenty of room. I joined him at length, and had the inexpressible satisfaction of standing once more upon my feet. We found ourselves in a splendid apartment of great magnitude, adorned with an incredible profusion of sacred paintings and hieroglyphics.”
Chameleon, a small kind of lizard noted for changing the color of its skin. But this change is not owing, as has been stated, to the substance it may be placed on. Among themselves they are very irascible, and are then seen to change their color rapidly. When quiet, dark yellow or gray is the predominant color; but when disturbed, this changes to a green, purple, or even ashy black. They live on flies, which they catch by shooting out their long tongue suddenly and drawing it in again. They are referred to as unclean animals in Leviticus 11:3030And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole. (Leviticus 11:30).