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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    weed!9.] Dr. Geddes says, there is little doubt of its being the sedge called * sari ; which, as we learn from Theophrastus and Pliny, grows on the marshy banks of the Nile, and rises to the height of almost two cubits?. This, indeed, agrees very well with Exod. ii. 3, 5, and. * the thickets of srundihatéóts plants, at some small distances from the Red Sea, observed by Dr. Shaw*!; but the place in Jonah seems to require some submarine plant, Browne, in his Travels, p. 191, observes, ** At Suez I abe served in the shallow parts of the adjacent sea a species of weed, which in the sunshine appeared to be red coral, being of a hue between scarlet and crimson, and of a spongy fecl and quality. I know not whether any use be made of it, nor am I acquainted with its Arabic name; but it strikes me, that, if found in great quantities at any. former period, it may have given the recent name to this sea; for this was the Arabian gulf of the ancients, whose Mare ..Er ythreum, or Red Sea, was the Indian Ocean. This weed may, perhaps, be the SUPH of the Hebrews, whence YAM SUPH, their name for this sea. |. This, however, is all con- jecture; and in the close of this article, I think it will appear is not an authority for the appellation given to this sea. One of the questions, which Michaelis proposed for the in- vestigation of the travellers sent into. Arabia by the king of Denmark, was respecting the meaning of the term suph given to what 1s now called “the Red Sea**.” He himself was of the opinion which Celsius had advanced, that it meant a species of alea, probably the sargazo, which grew at the bottom of the sea, around the shore, and spread its floating leaves, of a reddish hue, on the surface. He observes that the yp is mentioned in Exod. ii. 8, as growing in the Nile; and that in the ancient Egyptian 19 * Alga venit pelago, sed nascitur ulva palude. Alga is the sea-weed ; ulva is only used to express the reeds or weeds grow- ing in pools and standing waters. * Suf est le nom d'une herbe ou d' une plante, que l'on trouve en Ethiopie, de la grandeur du Chardon, la fleur est méme assez semblable à celle du Chardon, ala couleur prés, qui approche beaucoup de celle du Saffran. Les Abessins S'en servent beaucoup dans leurs teintures, et en fond un incarnat trés beau. Lobo, Voyage d'Abissinie, trad. Fr. par M. le Grand, Amst. 1727, page 53. ?» “ Fructicosi generis est sari, circum Nilum nascens, duorum fere cubitorum altitudine. Plin. N. H. I. xiii. c. 23. ?! Trav. p. 447, ed. Ato. 7? Exod. xiii. 18; xv. 4; Numb. xiv. 25; xxi. 4; irs xi. 16; 1 Kings, ix. -96; Psal. cvi. 7, 9, 22; cxxxvi. 13, 15; and Jer. xlix. 21. Once by the Sep- tuag gint, Jud. xi. 16, rendered baracoa Zio, in other places, egudee Oaracca, and in the “Vulgate * rubrum mare.” In our translation of Deut. i. 1, we read, “ in the plain over against the Red Sea. As Moses and the people were in the plains of Moab, the place here spoken of, and called in the original suPH, could not be the Red Sea, for they were now farther from that than they had yet been; and, indeed, there is no word for “sea” in the original. The place suru is perhaps the same that is called * Ziph in 1 Sam. ix. 6.
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