closely united, and either of them may be taken as the explanatory term.  The learner will find it easier to parse the noun by rule third; or both nouns, if there be two:  as, “I thy father-in-law Jethro am come unto thee.”—­Exod., xviii, 6.  There are many other examples, in which it is of no moment, which of the terms we take for the principal; and to all such the rule may be applied literally:  as, “Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee.”—­2 Kings, viii, 9.

OBS. 7.—­When two or more nouns of the possessive case are put in apposition, the possessive termination added to one, denotes the case of both or all; as, “For Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife”—­Matt., xiv, 3; Mark, vi, 17.  Here wife is in apposition with Herodias’, and brother with Philip’s; consequently all these words are reckoned to be in the possessive case.  The Greek text, which is better, stands essentially thus:  “For the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother.”  “For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect.”—­Isaiah, xlv, 4.  Here, as Jacob and Israel are only different names for the same person or nation, the four nouns in Italics are, according to the rule, all made possessives by the one sign used; but the construction is not to be commended:  it would be better to say, “For the sake of Jacob my servant, and Israel mine elect.”  “With Hyrcanus the high priest’s consent.”—­Wood’s Dict., w.  Herod.  “I called at Smith’s, the bookseller; or, at Smith the bookseller’s.”—­ Bullions’s E. Gram., p. 105.  Two words, each having the possessive sign, can never be in apposition one with the other; because that sign has immediate reference to the governing noun expressed or understood after it; and if it be repeated, separate governing nouns will be implied, and the apposition will be destroyed.[344]

OBS. 8.—­If the foregoing remark is just, the apposition of two nouns in the possessive case, requires the possessive sign to be added to that noun which immediately precedes the governing word, whether expressed or understood, and positively excludes it from the other.  The sign of the case is added, sometimes to the former, and sometimes to the latter noun, but never to both:  or, if added to both, the two words are no longer in apposition.  Example:  “And for that reason they ascribe to him a great part of his father Nimrod’s, or Belus’s actions.”—­Rollin’s An.  Hist., Vol. ii, p. 6.  Here father and Nimrod’s are in strict apposition; but if actions governs Belus’s, the same word is implied to govern Nimrod’s, and the two names are not in apposition, though they are in the same case and mean the same person.