gan, aâshare". Upon which the continuator of Calmet 72 remarks: "The application of the word aâshare to a swift dromedary illustrates a passage in Prov. vi. 11; at least it illustrates the ideas of the Chaldee paraphrase on this passage, and the parallel passage, or rather repetition, ch. xxiv. 34.A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.' It is evident that the writer means to denote the speed and rapidity of the approaches of penury; therefore, instead of one that travelleth,' read a post, a swift messenger, an express. "The words ish magen are no where used in the sense of an armed man, or a man of a shield,' as some would render them literally; but the Chaldee paraphrast translates them GABRA CISHERA, or rather ci-ashera, like an aâshare rider. The similitude of the Hebrew letters, as they now stand, to what they would be if the word achastaran, which is used in Esther, was received instead of them, is worth our notice: POWN) DOWN). If the Chaldee has not retained this reading, it has done no more than substitute the name of the swiftest species of camel with which the writer was acquainted, for the swiftest species mentioned in the Hebrew. "The LXX translates Spoueus, a runner; which shows that they knew nothing of this man with a shield,' who certainly could not be expected to run so freely when encumbered with a shield, as another could run without one. Besides, a shield is an armour of defence: had it been said a sword, it might have denoted power and attack. Our translators, aware of this, have employed the ambiguous word armed.' The sentiment, on these principles, would stand thus: So shall thy poverty advance as rapidly as an express; and thy penury as a strong and swift aâshare rider.'" EAGLE. NISR; Arab. nesr; Chald. nescher. Occ. Exod. xix. 4; Levit. xi. 13, et al. freq.73. The name is derived from a verb which signifies to lacerate, or tear in pieces. The eagle has always been considered as the king of birds on account of its great strength, rapidity and elevation of flight, natural ferocity, and the terror it inspires into its fellows of the air. Its voracity is so great that a large extent of territory is requisite for the supply of proper sustenance, Providence has therefore constituted it a solitary animal: two pair of eagles are never found in the same neighbourhood, though the genus is dispersed through every quarter of the world. It seldom makes depreda71 Hist. of Algiers, p. 101. 72 Fragments, No. 475. 736 Aquilarum diversæ circa proprietatem, magnitudinem et colorem sunt species; majores Arabico idiomate Nesir vocantur." Leo Africanus, Descr. Afr. 1. ix. c. 56. Et cap. 57. "Nesir maxima Africæ volucrum, corpore gruem excedit, rostro tamen, collo et cruribus brevior." tions on the habitations of mankind; preferring its own safety to the gratification of appetite. Neither does it ever make mean or inconsiderable conquests; the smaller and harmless birds being beneath its notice. It will, however, carry away a goose, or even a turkey. It has often been known to seize hares, young lambs, and kids; which latter, as well as fawns, it frequently destroys for the sake of drinking their blood, as it never drinks water in the natural state. Having slain an animal too large to be eaten at once, it devours or carries off a part; leaving the remainder for other creatures less delicate; for it never returns to feed upon the same carcass, neither will it ever devour carrion. Its sight is quick, strong, and piercing to a proverb. Jackson, in his Account of Morocco, p. 62, says, that "the VULTURE (nesser), except the ostrich, is the largest bird in Africa. They build their nests on lofty precipices, high rocks, and in dreary parts of the mountains. Mr. Bruce has called this bird 'the golden eagle,' but I apprehend that he has committed an error in denominating it an eagle, the generical name of which, in the Arabic language, is El Bezz." On the other hand, Mr. SALT, Trav. in Abyssinia, says, "its general appearance in a natural state, together with the vigour and animation which it displays, incline me to think it more nearly allied in the natural system to the eagles, and I should therefore be inclined to call it the African bearded Eagle.' In Job, xxxix. 27, the natural history of the eagle is finely drawn up. Is it at thy voice that the eagle soars? His eyes discern afar off. Even his young ones drink down blood; And wherever is slaughter, there is he. Mrs. Barbauld has given a description of the Eagle in the following lines: "The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms And to the nest compels the struggling prey." Alluding to the popular opinion that the eagle assists its feeble young in their flight, by bearing them up on its own pinions, Moses represents Jehovah as saying, Exod. xix. 4, "Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself." Scheuchzer has quoted from an ancient poet, the following beautiful pharaphrase on this passage. "Ac velut alituum princeps, fulvusque tonantis Impavidi: Tantum a teneris valet addere curam." When Balaam, Numb. xxiv. 21, delivered his predictions respecting the fate that awaited the nations which he then particularized, he said of the Kenites, "Strong is thy dwelling, and thou puttest thy nest in the rock;" alluding to that princely bird, the eagle, which not only delights in soaring to the loftiest heights, but chooses the highest rocks, and most elevated mountains as desirable situations for erecting its nest. Comp. Hab. ii. 9, Obad. 4. What Job says concerning the eagle, which is to be understood in a literal sense, "where the slain are, there is he," our Saviour makes an allegory of, when he says, Matth. xxiv. 28, "Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together;" that is, wherever the Jews are, who deal unfaithfully with GOD, there will also the Romans, who bore the eagle in their standard, be to execute vengeance upon them. Comp. Luke, xvii. 37. The swiftness of the flight of the eagle is alluded to in several passages of Scripture; as Deut. xxviii. 49, "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth; as swift as the eagle flieth." In the affecting lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan, their impetuous and rapid career is described in forcible terms. 2 Sam. i. 23, "They were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions." Jeremiah (iv. 13), when he beheld in vision the march of Nebuchadnezzar, cried, "Behold he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Wo unto us, for we are spoiled." To the wide expanded wings of the eagle, and the rapidity of his flight, the same prophet beautifully alludes in a subsequent chapter, where he describes the subversion of Moab by the same ruthless conqueror. Jer. xlviii. 40, “Behold he shall fly as an eagle, and spread his wings over Moab." In the same manner he describes the sudden desolations of Ammon in the next chapter; but, when he turns his eye to the ruins of his own country, he exclaims in still more energetic language, Lam. iv. 19, "Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the hea vens." Under the same comparison, the patriarch Job describes the rapid flight of time, ix. 26, "My days are passed away, as the eagle that hasteth to the prey." The surprising rapidity with which the blessings of common providence sometimes vanish from the grasp of the possessor is thus described by Solomon, Prov. xxx. 19," Riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle towards heaven." The flight of this bird is as sublime as it is rapid and impetuous. None of the feathered race soar so high. In his daring excursions he is said to leave the clouds of heaven, and regions of thunder, and lightning, and tempest far beneath him, and to approach the very limits of ether74. Alluding to this lofty soaring is the prophecy of Obadiah, ver. 4, concerning the pride and humiliation of Moab: "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." The prophet Jeremiah, xlix. 16, pronounces the doom of Edom in similar terms: "O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill; though thou shouldst make thy nest high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord." It has been a popular opinion, that the eagle lives and retains, its vigour to a great age; and that, beyond the commou lot of other birds, it moults in its old age, renews its feathers, and is restored to youthful strength again 75. This circumstance is mentioned in Psal. ciii. 5, and Isai. xl. 31. Whether the notion is in any degree well founded or not, we need not inquire. It is enough for a poet, whether sacred or profane, to have the authority of popular opinion to support an image introduced for illustration or ornament. It is remarkable that Cyrus, compared in Isai. xlvi. 11, to an eagle (so the word translated "ravenous bird" should be rendered), is by Xenophon said to have an eagle for his ensign; using, without knowing it, the identical word of the prophet, with only a Greek termination to it76. So exact is, the correspondence betwixt the prophet and the historian, the prediction and the event. Xenophon and other ancient historians inform us that the 74 Apuleius, as quoted by Bochart. 75 See Damir. Aristot. Hist. Anim. 1. ix. c. 33. Plin. N. H. 1. x. c. 3. Horus Apollo, 1. ii. c. 92. Valterus, Aquila Natura e Sacris Litteris, ex Deut. xxxii. 11, Ezek. xvii. 3, Psal. ciii. 5, et hæc vicissim, ex Historia Naturali et monumentis Veterum illustratæ, 4to. Lips. 1747. 76 “A very proper emblem for Cyrus," says Bishop Lowth, as in other respects, so particularly because the ensign of Cyrus was a golden eagle, AETOL Xgurous, the very word by which the prophet here uses, expressed as near as may be in Greek letters. Xenoph. Cyrop. I. vii. sub init. Ꮮ golden eagle with extended wings was the ensign of the Persian monarchs long before it was adopted by the Romans; and it is very probable, that the Persians borrowed the symbol from the ancient Assyrians, in whose banners it waved, till imperial Babylon bowed her head to the yoke of Cyrus. If this conjecture be well founded, it discovers the reason why the sacred writers, in describing the victorious march of the Assyrian armies, allude so frequently to the expanded eagle. Referring to the Babylonian monarch, the prophet Hosea, viii. 1, proclaimed in the ears of all Israel, the measure of whose iniquities was nearly full"He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." Jeremiah, xlviii. 40, predicted a similar calamity; "Thus saith the Lord, behold he shall fly as an eagle, and spread his wings over Moab:" and the same figure was employed to denote the sudden destruction that overtook the house of Esau. "Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah." The words of these prophets received a full accomplishment in the irresistible impetuosity and complete success with which the Babylonian monarchs, and particularly Nebuchadnezzar, pursued their plans of conquest. Ezekiel denominates him, with great propriety, "a great eagle with great wings;" because he was the most powerful monarch of his time, and let into the field more numerous and better appointed armies (which the prophet calls, by a beautiful figure "his wings," the wings of his army), than perhaps the world had ever seen. The prophet Isaiah, referring to the same monarch, predicted the subjugation of Judea in these terms-" He shall pass through Judah. He shall overflow, and go over. He shall reach even to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings (the array of his army) shall fill the breadth of thy land, Ŏ Immanuel." Isai. viii. 8. The king of Egypt is also styled by Ezekiel, "a great eagle, with great wings, and many feathers;" but he manifestly gives the preference to the king of Babylon, by adding, that he had" long wings, full of feathers, which had divers colours;" that is, greater wealth, and a more numerous army 77. See GIER-EAGLE. EBONY. D, or, according to 23 of Dr. Kennicott's codices,' HOBNIM; Greek, EBENOΣ78; Vulgate, hebeninos. An Indian wood, of a black colour, and of great value in ancient times 79. As very hard and heavy, and admitting of a 77 Paxton, Illustrations of Scripture, V. ii. p. 14. 78" In Montfauconii quidem Hexaplis Origenianis nihil de Symmacho notatum est: at ex Theodoreto disco, eum de Hebeno cogitasse. Ta xsgara, inquit ad 11. 1. ο Σύμμαχος εβενος ηρμηνεύσιν, αφ' ων τα εξενια καλεμενα γινεται. Ergo Hebeni nomen in hoc versu apud Symmachum legit, sed male ad p retulit." Michaelis, Not. ad Geogr. Heb. exter. part i. p. 206. |