Diseases of the Bible / by Risdon Bennett.

  • James Risdon Bennett
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the Bible / by Risdon Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    spread over a much longer period than in the case of any of the Biblical plagues. What interpretation we are to put on the vivid description of Zechariah/ of the plague with which the Lord threatens to ' smite all the people that have fough]; against Jerusalem,' it is very difficult to say. ' Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.' If the description be not altogether metaphorical, may it be intended to describe an army dying of famine ? For the subsequent verses show that the same plague was to fall on the cattle of the enemy, as in the fifth plague of Egypt there was to be a grievous murrain of cattle. We need not refer to various passages where moral evil is spoken of as a plague, such as i Kings viii. 37, 38, where ' the plague of his own heart,'' which every man should know, is associated with famine, pestilence, and whatsoever plague and whatsoever sickness there may be among the people. The wicked, we are told in Ps. Ixxiii, ' are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men.' From time immemorial the various pestilences with which nations have been visited have been looked on as Divine judgments, which they have sought to avert by sacrifices, penances, and prayers. And this acknowledg- ment may have been the origin of the use of the word plague, or stroke, as apphcable to all and every form ot destructive pestilence, and even of every special indi- vidual affliction. 'The arrow that fiieth by day' is a figurative expression used by the Arabs, who speak of the pestilence as ' God's arrow, which will always hit his * Zech. xiv. 12.