The natural history of the Bible ; or, A description of all the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects, trees, plants, flowers, gums, and precious stones, mentioned in the sacred scriptures: Collected from the best authorities, and alphabetically arranged / by Thaddeus Mason Harris.

  • Thaddeus Mason Harris
Date:
1824
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of the Bible ; or, A description of all the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects, trees, plants, flowers, gums, and precious stones, mentioned in the sacred scriptures: Collected from the best authorities, and alphabetically arranged / by Thaddeus Mason Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    besieged in Samaria to devour either the intestines of the doves, after the more wealthy had eaten the bodies; or asit might per- haps be rendered, the crops, the contents of which, those who kept doves forced them to disgorge. ‘There are not wanting in history, examples of those who, in the extremity of hunger, have been compelled to eat that at which their natures would other- wise reluct ©, T DRAGON, This word is hieuiumyt to be met with in our English transla- tion of the Bible. . It answers generally to the Hebrew jn, yn, DN, THAN, THANIN, and THANIM; and these words are vari- ously rendered, dragons, serpents, sea-monsters, and whales. The following remarks, by my learned friend the Hon. James Winthrop of Cambridge, are ingenious. Dn the plural of 4n is used and translated plurally in the following passages by the word “dragons.” . Job, xxx. 29; Psal. xliv. 19; Isai. xii. 22; xxxiv. 13; xxxv. 7; Jer. ix. 11; xiv. 6; xlix. 33; and Mic. i. 8. In all these places utter desolation is the idea conveyed; and the animal is described as snuffing wind, wailing, and belonging to the desert. ‘These characters seem hardly to apply to a dra- gon or serpent. In Ezek, xxix. 3, it is translated as of the sin- gular number. The original is joined with a verb. 313 is used plurally in Lam. iv. 3, and translated « sea-monsters ;” though the description of its manners rather applies to some wild beast than to a fish. The last letter | is used as a plural termination, m conformity to the Chaldee; but the regular Hebrew letter would be =. This word is in Psalm xci. 13, translated as of the singular number. In all other places it seems to be the sin- gular of “ whales, and is in some of them so translated. In Mal. i. 3, rwn is rendered “dragons.” It is coupled with wil- derness, and is the plural form of jn. The Rev. James Hurdis, in a dissertation relative to this sub- ject, observes, that the word translated “ whales, in Gen. i. 21, occurs twenty-seven times in Scripture; and he attempts, with much ingenuity, to prove that it every where signifies the crocodile. ‘That it sometimes has this meaning, he thinks is clear from Ezek. xxix. 3, “ Behold I am against thee, Pharoah king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.’ For to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than the crocodile? The same argument he draws from Isai. li. 9. “ Art thou not he that hath cut Buriap [Egypt], and wounded the dragon ©.” 69 See Fuller, Miscel. Sacr. 1. 6. c. 9. p. 194. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 1. iii. c. 6. Josephus de Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. ult. ad finem. 9! Critical Dissertation upon the true Meaning of the Word t2?»n found in Gen. i. 21. Lond. 1790. Svo. . € Consult J. M. Glesmer, De dracone insigni regum ZEgyptiorum, ad illustr. Ezek. xxix. diatriba. In Biblioth. Brem. Class. vii. fas. 6. p. 976.
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