Meni (Hebrews Meni', מנַי, from מָנָה, to distribute; Sept. τύχη, Vulg, i.e .fortuna, just mentioned, SEE GAD; Auth. Vers. "that number," marg. "Meni"), apparently an idol which the captive Israelites worshipped by libations (lectisternia), after the custom of the Babylonians (Isa 66:11), and probably symbolical of destiny (a sense indicated by the first clause of the next verse), like the Arabic mananfate (from the same root), and the Greek μοῖρα. Pococke (Specim. hist. Arab. p. 92) has pointed out the resemblance to Manat, an idol of the ancient Arabs (Koran, Sur. 53:19. 20), "What think ye of Allat, and AI-Uzzah, and Manah, that other third goddess?" Manah was the object of worship of "the tribes of Hudhey and Kuza'ah, who dwelt between Mekkeh and El-Medineh, and, as some say, of the tribes of Ows, EI-Khazraj, and Thakik also. This idol was a large stone, demolished by one Saad in the eighth year of the flight, a year so fatal to the idols of Arabia" (Lane's Sel. from the Kur-an, pref. p. 30, 31). But Al-Zamakhshari, the commentator on the Koran derives Manah from a root signifying "to flow," because of the blood which flowed at the sacrifices to this idol, or, as Mill explains it, because the ancient idea of the moon was that it was a star full of moisture, with which it filled the sublunary regions. "That the word is a proper name, and also the proper name of an object of idolatrous worship cultivated by the Jews in Babylon, is a supposition which there seems no reason to question, as it is in accordance with the context, and has every probability to recommend it. But the identification of Meni with any known heathen god is still uncertain. The versions are at variance. In the Sept. the word is rendered 'fortune' or 'luck.' The old Latin version of the clause is 'impletis dcemoni potionem;' while Symmachus (as quoted by Jerome) must have had a different reading, מַנַּי, minni, ' without me,' which Jerome interprets as signifying that the act of worship implied in the drink-offering was not performed for God, but for the daemon (' ut doceat non sibi fieri sed daemoni). The Targum of Jonathan is very vague-' and mingle cups for their idols;' and the Syriac translators either omit the word altogether, or had a different reading, perhaps לָמוֹ, lamo, 'for them.' Some variation of the same kind apparently gave rise to the super eam of the Vulgate, referring to the 'table' mentioned in the first clause of the verse. From the old versions we come to the commentators, and their judgments are equally conflicting. Jerome :(Comm. in Es. 65:11) illustrates the passage by reference to an ancient idolatrous custom which prevailed in Egypt, and especially at Alexandria, on the last day of the last month of the year, of placing a table covered with dishes of various kinds, and a cup mixed with mead, in acknowledgment of the fertility of the past year, or as an omen of that which was to come (comp. Virgil, AEn. 2:763). But he gives no clue to the identification of Meni, and his explanation is evidently suggested by the renderings of the Sept. and the old Latin version; the former, as he quotes them, translating Gad by 'fortune,' and Meni by 'demon,' in which they are followed by the latter. In the later mythology of Egypt, as we learn from Macrobius (Saturn. 1:19), Δαίμων and Τύχη/ were two of the four deities who presided over birth, and represented respectively the Sun and Moon. A passage quoted by Selden (De Dis Syris, i, c. 1) from a MS. of Vettius Valens of Antioch, an ancient astrologer, goes also to prove that in the astrological language of his day the sun and moon were indicated by δαίμων and τύχη, as being the arbiters of human destiny. This circumstance, coupled with the similarity between Meni and Μήν or Μήνη), the ancient name for the moon, has induced the majority of commentators to conclude that Meni is the Moon god or goddess, the Deus Lunus, or Dea Luna of the Romans; masculine as regards the earth which she illumines (terrce maritus), feminine with respect to the sun (solis uxor), from :whom she receives her light.