The ancient custom, whose echoes have not yet died out in the East, was that the host honored his guest most highly by killing a sheep at the threshold of the house, upon the guest's arrival, and inviting him to step over the blood into the house. This act formed the "blood covenant" between the guest and his host. It made them one. To us one of the most cordial and dignified expressions in {161} inviting a guest, especially from a distant town, was, "If God ever favors us with a visit from you, we will kill a _zebihat_!" In his great rejoicing in the return of his son, the father of the prodigal is made to receive him as he would a most highly honored guest. "The fatted calf"--and not only a sheep--is killed as the _zebihat_ of a new covenant between a loving father and his son, who "was dead and is alive again; was lost, and is found."[10] The parable of the "treasure hid in a field"[11] alludes to a very interesting phase of Syrian thought. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." I cannot refrain from quoting again in this connection the famous commentator, Adam Clarke. Speaking of this parable, he says: "We are not to imagine that the _treasure_ here {162} mentioned, and to which the gospel salvation is likened, means a _pot_ or _chest_ of money hidden in the field, but rather a gold or silver _mine_, which he who found out could not get at, or work, without turning up the field, and for this purpose he bought it. Mr. Wakefield's observation is very just: 'There is no sense in the _purchase_ of a field for a _pot_ of _money_, which he might have carried away very _readily_ and as _honestly_, too, as by overreaching the owner by an unjust purchase.' ... From this view of the subject, the translation of this verse, given above, will appear proper--a _hidden treasure_, when applied to a _rich mine_, is more proper than a _treasure hid_, which applies better to a _pot of money_ deposited there, which I suppose was our translator's opinion; and _kept secret_, or _concealed_, will apply better to the subject of his discovery till he made the purchase, than _hideth_, for which there could be no occasion, when the pot was already _hidden_, and the place known only to himself." I have inserted here this double quotation, {163} italics and all, in order to show how when the real facts are not known to a writer the temptation to play on words becomes irresistible. In this exposition the simple parable is treated as a legal document. Every word of it is subjected to careful scrutiny. "Hid" is converted into "hidden," and "concealed" is summoned to supplant "hideth," in order to make the "treasure" mean a vast deposit of gold ore, and get the poor Syrian peasant into the mining business.