of a tent, on account of its hardness and unpliability. I cannot, therefore, but adopt with Faber, Dathe, and Rosenmuller, the opinion of Rau, that it is the seal, or sea-calf; "vitulus marinus;" the skin of which is both strong and pliable, and was accounted by the ancients as a most proper outer covering for tents 87, and was also made into shoes, as Rau has clearly shown 88. Niebuhr says, "A merchant of Abushahr called dahash that fish which the captains in English vessels call porpoise, and the Germans, sea-hog. In my voyage from Maskat to Abushahr I saw a prodigious quantity together near Ras Mussendom, who were all going the same way, and seemed to swim with great vehemence 89," See RAM'S SKINS. BALM. 7 TZERI. Occ. Gen. xxxvii. 25; xliii. 11; Jer. viii. 22; xlvi. 11; li. 8; and Ezek. xxvii. 17. Balm, or balsam, is used with us as a common name for many of those oily resinous substances, which flow spontaneously or by incision, from certain trees or plants, and are of considerable use in medicine and surgery. It serves therefore very properly to express the Hebrew word y, which the LXX have rendered Tи, and the ancients have interpreted resin indiscriminately. But Kimchi, and some of the moderns, have understood by y that particular species heretofore properly called " balsamum" or "opobalsamum," and now distinguished by the name of “balsamum judaicum," or balm of Gilead; being that which is so much celebrated by Pliny, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Tacitus, Justin, and others, for its costliness, its medicinal virtues, and for being the product of Judea only, and of a particular spot there; and which Josephus 90 attributes to the neighbourhood of Jericho, but says, that the tree was, according to tradition, originally brought by the queen of Sheba to king Solomon out of Arabia Felix, the country that now principally supplies the demand for that valuable drug. On the other hand, Bochart strongly contends, that they mentioned Jerem. viii. 22, could not possibly mean that halsam, as Gilead was very far from the spot which produced it, and none of the trees grew on that side of the Jordan; and besides it is spoken of as brought from Gilead, Gen. xxxvii. 25, long before the balsam tree had been planted in any part of Judea. He therefore considers it as no other than the resin drawn from the Terebinthus, or turpentine-tree, which abounds sufficiently in those parts. And this, for all that appears, says Bp. Blaney, may have been the case; the resin or balm of the Terebinthus being well known to have healing virtues, which is at least sufficient to answer the prophet's ques 87 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. c. 55. 88 Rau, Comment. de iis quæ ex Arabia in Usum Tabernaculi fuerunt petita. c. ii. 89 Niebuhr. Trav. p. 157. Fr. ed. 90 Antiq. 1. iv. c. 6. lib. viii. c. 6. De Bell. Jud. 1. 1. c. 6. ed. Hudson. tion on this occasion; which was metaphorically to ask, if there were no salutary means within reach, or none that knew how to apply them, for the relief of his country from those miseries with which it was afflicted. BALSAM-TREE. by BAALSHEMEN; in Arabic abuschâm, that is "father of scent," sweet scented. According to Mr. Bruce, from whom I shall principally extract this article, the balessan, balsam, or balm, is an evergreen shrub, or tree, which grows to about fourteen feet high, spontaneously, and without culture in its native country, Azab, and all along the coast to Babelmandel. The trunk is about eight or ten inches in diameter; the wood light and open, gummy, and outwardly of a reddish colour, incapable of receiving a polish, and covered with a smooth bark, like that of a young cherrytree. It flattens at top, like trees that are exposed to snow blasts or sea air, which gives it a stunted appearance. It is remarkable for a penury of leaves. The flowers are like those of the acacia, small and white, only that three hang upon three filaments, or stalks, where the acacia has but one. Two of these flowers fall off, and leave a single fruit; the branches that bear these are the shoots of the present year; they are of a reddish colour, and tougher than the old wood. After the blossoms follow yellow, fine scented seed, enclosed in a reddish black pulpy nut, very sweet, and containing a yellowish liquor like honey, They are bitter, and a little tart upon the tongue; of the same shape and bigness with the fruit of the turpentine-tree, thick in the middle and pointed at the ends. There were three kinds of balsam extracted from this tree. The first was called opobalsamum, and was most highly esteemed. It was that which flowed spontaneously, or by means of incision, from the trunk or branches of the tree in summer time. The second was carpobalsamum, made by expressing the fruit when in maturity. The third, and least esteemed of all, was hylobalsamum, made by a decoction of the buds and small young twigs. The great value set upon this drug in the East is traced to the earliest ages. The Ishmaelites, or Arabian carriers and merchants, trafficking with the Arabian commodities into Egypt, brought with them as a part of their cargo. Gen. xxxvii. 25; xliii. 11. Strabo alone, of all the ancients, has given us the true account of the place of its origin. "In that most happy land of the Sabaeans," says he, "grow the frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon; and in the coast that is about Saba, the balsam also." Among the myrrh trees behind Azab, all along the coast is its native country. We need not doubt that it was transplanted early into Arabia, that is, into the south part of Arabia Felix immediately fronting Azab, where it is indigenous. The high country of Arabia was too cold to receive it; being all mountainous: water freezes there. The first plantation that succeeded seems to have been at Petra, the ancient metropolis of Arabia, now called Beder, or Beder Huncin. Josephus, in the history of the antiquities of his country, says that a tree of this balsam was brought to Jerusalem by the queen of Saba, and given among other presents to Solomon, who, as we know from Scripture, was very studious of all sorts of plants, and skilful in the description and distinction of them. And here, indeed, it seems to have been cultivated and to have thriven; so that the place of its origin, through length of time, combined with other reasons, came to be forgotten. Notwithstanding the positive authority of Josephus, and the great probability that attends it, we cannot put it in competition with what we have been told in Scripture, as we have just now seen, that the place where it grew, and was sold to merchants, was Gilead in Judea, more than 1730 years before Christ, or 1000 before the queen of Saba; so that in reading the verse, nothing can be plainer than that it had been transplanted into Judea, flourished, and had become an article of commerce in Gilead, long before the period he mentions 91. "A company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." Gen. xxxvii. 25. Now the spicery, or pepper, was certainly purchased by the Ishmaelites at the mouth of the Red Sea, where was the market for Indian goods; and at the same place they must have bought the myrrh, for that neither grew nor grows anywhere else than in Saba or Azabo, east of Cape Gardefan, where were the ports for India, and whence it was dispersed over all the world. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Tacitus, Justin, Solinus, and Serapion, speaking of its costliness and medicinal virtues, all say that this balsam came from Judea. The words of Pliny are, " But to all other odours whatever, the balsam is preferred, produced in no other part but the land of Judea, and even there in two gardens only; both of them belonging to the king, one no more than twenty acres, the other still smaller 92" At this time, continues Mr. Bruce, I suppose it got its name of balsamnum Judaicum, or balm of Gilead; and thence became an article of merchandise and fiscal revenue, which probably occasioned the discouragement of bringing any more from Arabia, whence it was very probably prohibited as contraband. We 91 In reply to the above observations of Mr. Bruce, we must recollect, that Bochart endeavours to prove that in Gen. xxxvii. 25. and xliii. 11. the word tzeri signifies only rosin, or turpentine; and maintains that the balm was unknown in Judea before the time of Solomon. Hieroz. 1. iv. c. 11. See also the Samaritan version, Munster, Pagninus, Abias Montanus, Malvenda, Junius, Ursinus, and Ainsworth. 92 Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. xxii. c. 25. shall suppose that thirty acres planted with this tree would have produced more than all the trees of Arabia do at this day. Nor does the plantation of Beder Huncin amount to much more than that quantity, for we are still to observe, that even when it had been, as it were, naturalized in Judea, and acquired a name in the country, still it bore evident marks of its being a stranger there; and its being confined to two royal gardens alone, shows it was maintained there by force and culture, and was by no means a native of the country: and this is confirmed by Strabo, who speaks of it as being in the king's palace and garden at Jericho. This place, being one of the warmest in Judea, indicates their apprehensions about it 93 " The observation of Justin is, that "the wealth of the Jewish nation increased by revenues from balsam, which is produced only in their country, for that there is a valley which is enclosed with continued mountains, as by a wall, and in a manner resembling a camp; that the space consists of two hundred acres, and is called Jericho, wherein there is a wood remarkable for its fruitfulness and pleasant appearance, being distinguished for its palm-trees and balsams." He describes the balsam-tree as having a form similar to the fir-tree, excepting that it is not so lofty; and that in a certain time of the year it exudes the balsam; and he observes that the place is not more remarkable for its warmth than for its exuberance, since as the sun is more ardent here than in other parts of the country, there is a kind of natural and perpetual glow in the sultry air. It is still cultivated in the plain of Jericho; and the process of obtaining the balsam is described by Mariti, Vol. ii. p. 27, &c. He was there in 1766. The culture seems then to have been south of the town, towards the Dead Sea. Volney was at Jericho in 1784, and denies the tree to be growing at the town. This statement may reconcile the two authors. BARLEY. у SHOREH; Arabic, SCHŒIR. Occ. Exod. ix. 31; Levit. xxvii. 16; et al. freq. A well known kind of grain. It derives its Hebrew name from the long hairy beard which grows upon the ear9*. Pliny, on the testimony of Menander, says that barley was the most ancient aliment of mankind 95. In Palestine the barley was sown about October, and reaped in the end of March, just after the Passover. In Egypt the barley harvest was later; for when the hail fell there, Exod. ix. 31, a few days before the Passover, the flax and barley were bruised and destroyed; for the flax was at its full growth, and the barley began to form its green ears; but the wheat, and more 93 Bruce's Trav. vol. v. p. 19-24, ed. 8vo. 94 So its Latin name hordeum, is from horreo, to stand on end, as the hair. See Martini Lexicon Etymolog. 95 Homer, II. V. v. 196. and VI. v. 506. F backward grain, were not damaged, because they were only in the blade, and the hail bruised the young shoots which produce the ears. The Rabbins sometimes called barley the food of beasts, because in reality they fed their cattle with it. 1 Kings, iv. 28; and from Homer 96 and other ancient authors we learn, that barley was given to horses. The Hebrews, however, frequently used barley bread, as we find by several passages of Scripture: for example, David's friends brought to him in his flight, wheat, barley, flour, &c. 2 Sam. xvii. 28. Solomon sent wheat, barley, oil, and wine to the labourers king Hiram had furnished him. 2 Chron. ii. 15. Elijah had a present made him of twenty barley loaves, and corn in the husk. 2 Kings iv. 22. And, by miraculously increasing the five barley loaves, Christ fed a multitude of about five thousand. John, vi. 8-10. The jealousy offering, in the Levitical institution, was to be barley meal. Numb. v. 15. The common mincha, or offering, was of fine wheat flour, Levit. ii. 1; but this was of barley, a meaner grain, probably to denote the vile condition of the person in whose behalf it was offered. For which reason also, there was no oil or frankincense permitted to be offered with it. Sometimes barley is put for a low contemptible reward or price. So the false prophets are charged with seducing the people for handfuls of barley, and morsels of bread. Ezek. xiii. 19. Hosea bought his emblematic bride, for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Hosea, iii. 2. The author of "Scripture Illustrated" thus explains Isaiah, xxviii. 25, "the principal wheat," literally SHUREH (perhaps for W SHIREH) and yw SHOREH." This latter, shoreh, is no doubt the schair of the Arabs, barley: and what forbids that the first SHUREH, or SHIREH, should be the shaer, durra, or one of the kinds of millet, which we know was a principal, if not the very principal kind of food among the Orientals? The " appointed barley," Dr. Stock renders ,"picked barley," and Bp. Lowth more paraphrastically, "barley that hath its appointed limit," referring probably to the boundary between that and the other grain. But I would suggest that the word NISMAN, rendered" appointed," may be an error in transcription for DD SESAMON, the sesamum so well known in the East 97. Of this plant there were three species-the Orientale, the Judicum, and the Trifelictum. The Orientale is an annual herbaceous plant. Its flowers are of a dirty white, and not 96 For other particulars, see Celsius, V. 2. p. 239. Hasselquist, p. 129. 97 The word in differs but one letter only from D, and that by the mere omission of a stroke to complete its form. If we suppose the letter s (D) to have been omitted here, then we make the N (2) into y (1)," and sesamem;" otherwise we may read, according to the Egyptian name, and semsemun” (JDDDD), supposing the first syllable omitted. |