was reduced to the necessity of sending for Moses, and promising him that he would let Israel go, if he would but rid him and his country of that odious plague. Moses took him at his word; and desiring him to name the time when he should free the land of these creatures, punctually and precisely performed it; so that the next day, "the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields;" and whilst his subjects were gathering them up in heaps in order to carry them off (their stench being like to have bred an infection), Pharaoh was thinking how to elude his promise, not considering that he only made way for another plague.

"From what is said in Rev. xvi. 13, I should be induced to think," says Mr. Bryant, "that these animals were of old, types of magicians, priests, and prophets; particularly those of Egypt. If this be true, the miracle which Moses at this time exhibited was attended with a wonderful propriety in respect to Pharaoh and his wise men; and, at the same time, afforded a just punishment upon the whole of that infatuated people, 'quibus res eo pervenit, ut et rana et culices et formica Dii esse viderentur." Lactantius, de Origine Erroris, lib. ii. c. 6. p. 135.

The author of the book of Wisdom, ch. xix. v. 10, refers to this plague inflicted on the Egyptians, and says of the Israelites, that "they were mindful of the things that were done while they sojourned in the strange land, how the ground brought forth flies [oxuna] instead of cattle, and the river cast up a multitude of frogs [Bareaxwv] instead of fishes." Philo, also, in his life of Moses, l. 1, has given a very particular account of the plague of frogs. Bochart has devoted seventeen pages to the elucidation of this subject 94.

FULLER'S-SOAP. See SOAP.
GALBANUM.

CHELBENAH.

This word occurs in Exodus, xxx. 34, only. Michaelis Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr. p. 753, makes the word a compound of 5, "milk," or "gum" (for the Syriac uses the noun in both senses), and," white;" as being the white milk or gum of a plant 95.

It is the thickened sap of an umbelliferous plant, called " metopion," which grows on Mount Amanus in Syria, and is frequently found in Persia, and in some parts of Africa 96. The plant rises with a ligneous stalk from eight to ten feet, and is garnished with leaves at each joint. The top of the stalk is terminated by an umbel of yellow flowers, which are succeeded by oblong channelled seeds, which have a thin membrane or

94 Hieroz. Vol. iii. p. 563.

95 It is still common to call the white juice which exudes from certain plants "the milk," and the term is retained in "gum lac,” &c.

96 Ferula Africana galbanifera. Tournefort. Bubon. galban. Linnæi. A particular description of the plant may be found in Morrison, Hist. pl. p. 309. See also Dioscorides, 1. iii. c. 97. Plin. N. H. 1, xx. c. 25.

wing on their border. When any part of the plant is broken, there issues a little thin juice of a cream colour. To procure this while the plant is growing, the natives wound the stem at a small distance above the root, and the gum which weeps out they collect for use. It is of a strong, piercing smell, and of a bitterish warm taste.

It was an ingredient in the holy incense of the Jews.

GALL.

.RASH ראש

Something excessively bitter, and supposed to be poisonous; as Deut. xxix. 18; xxxii. 32; Psal. Ixix. 21; Jer. viii. 14; ix. 15; xxiii. 15; Lam. iii. 19; Hosea, x. 4; Amos, vi. 12. It is evident from the first mentioned place, that some herb or plant is meant of a malignant or nauseous kind at least; being there joined with wormwood, and in the margin of our bibles explained to be "a a very poisonful herb." Eben Ezra and the Rabbins observe, that the word is written with a vau in Deut. xxxii. 32, and with an aleph in all the other places, and that improperly. And Dr. Geddes informs us, that in Deut. xxix. 18, instead of W RASH, five MSS. have w RUSH, and a sixth had at first the same reading; which, in the elder editions, was the textual reading in ch. xxxii. 32, and which, he thinks, the true original meaning. Gouset. Lex. Hebr. 785, says, that this plant is named from w, to make poor, because it impoverishes the land where it grows, and the animals that feed upon it.

I have inquired whether the word is retained in the Rhus Syriacum of Pliny. From the violent effects of the poisonous plant, whatever it may be, comes our English word “rash,” an inflammatory eruption.

In Psal. Ixix. 21, which is justly considered as a prophecy of our Saviour's sufferings, it is said, "they gave W to eat;' which the LXX have rendered xoλv, gall. And accordingly it is recorded in the history, Matth. xxvii. 34, "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall," okos peta xoλys. But in the parallel passage, Mark, xv. 23, it is said to be coμuguioμevov ovov, "wine mingled with myrrh," a very bitter ingredient. บวบ From whence I am induced to think that yoλ, and perhaps N, may be used as a general name for whatever is exceedingly bitter; and consequently, where the sense requires it, may be put specially for any bitter herb or plant, the infusion of which may be called w-97. So porn wingas is used metaphorically by χολη πικριας St. Peter, Acts, viii. 23. And as xoλn also denotes choler or anger, Supos is used by the LXX in the Old Testament for poison in this sense of stupifying. Psal. Ix. 3, oivos naтavužews, the wine of stupidity, of wrath, or malediction. So Psal. lxxv. 9.

מי ראש

"Wormwood," is by the LXX rendered oλ, Prov. v. 4, and Lament. iii. 15; and so is 'n mererathi, from marar, Job, xvi. 13. See MYRRH and WORMWOOD.

The following are the remarks of Dr. Adam Clarke," Perhaps the word oλ, commonly translated gall, signifies no more than bitters of any kind. It was a common custom to administer a stupifying potion, compounded of sour wine, which is the same as vinegar, from the French vinaigre, frankincense, and myrrh, to condemned persons, to help to alleviate their sufferings, or so disturb their intellect that they might not be sensible of them. The Rabbins say, that they put a grain of frankincense into a cup of strong wine; and they ground this on Prov. xxxi. 6. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, i. e. who is condemned to death. Some person, out of kindness, appears to have administered this to our blessed Lord; but he, as in all other cases, determining to endure the fulness of pain, refused to take what was thus offered to him, choosing to tread the winepress alone. Instead of otos, vinegar, several excellent MSS. and Versions have ovov, wine; but as sour wine is said to have been a general drink of the common people and Roman soldiers, it being the same as vinegar, it is of little consequence which reading is here adopted. This custom of giving stupifying potions to condemned malefactors is alluded to in Prov. xxxi. 6. Give strong drink, SHEKAR, inebriating drink, to him who is ready to PERISH; and wine to him who is BITTER of soul— because he is just going to suffer the punishment of death. And thus the Rabbins, as we have seen above, understand it. See Lightfoot and Schoetgen.

Michaelis offers an ingenious exposition of this place. Immediately after Christ was fastened to the cross, they gave him, according to Matt. xxvii. 34, vinegar mingled with gall; but according to Mark, xv. 23, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. That St. Mark's account is the right one, is pro

bable from this circumstance, that Christ refused to drink what was offered him, as appears from both evangelists. Wine mixed with myrrh was given to malefactors at the place of execution, to intoxicate them, and make them less sensible to pain. Christ, therefore, with great propriety, refused the aid of such remedies. But if vinegar was offered him, which was taken merely to assuage thirst, there could be no reason for his rejecting it. Besides, he tasted it before he rejected it; and therefore he must have found it different from that which, if offered to him, he was ready to receive. To solve this difficulty, we must suppose that the words used in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, were such as agreed with the account given by St. Mark, and at the same time were capable of the construction which were put on them by St. Matthew's Greek translator. Suppose St. Matthew wrote CHALEEA BEMIREERA, which signifies sweet wine with bitters, or sweet wine and myrrh, as we find it in Mark; and Matthew's translator overlooked the yod in CHALEEA, he took it for CHALA, which signifies

vinegar; and bitter he translated by zohn, as it is often used in the Septuagint. Nay, St. Matthew may have written &, and have still meant to express sweet wine; if so, the difference only consisted in the points; for the same word which, when pronounced chalé, signifies sweet, denotes vinegar as soon as it is pronounced chala.

"With this conjecture Dr. Marsh (Michaelis's translator) is not satisfied; and therefore finds a Chaldee word for ovos wine, which may easily be mistaken for one that denotes ožos vinegar; and likewise a Chaldee word, which signifies cpvgva, myrrh, which may be easily mistaken for the one that denotes xorn gall. 'Now,' says he, 'N CHAMAR, or CHAMERA, really denotes ovos wine, and on CHAMETS, or NY CHAMETSA, really denotes otos, vinegar. Again, & MURA, really signifies ouvqva myrrh, and MURERA, really signifies xon, gall. If, then, we

חמרא חליט במורא suppose that the original Chaldee text was

CHAMERA HALEET BEMURA, wine mingled with myrrh, which is not at all improbable, as it is the reading of the Syriac version, at Mark, xv. 23, it might easily have been mistaken for

CHAMETSA HALEET BEMURERA, vinegar mingled with gall. This is a more ingenious conjecture than that of Michaelis. See Marsh's Notes to Michaelis, vol. iii. part ii. p. 127-28. But as that kind of sour wine, which was used by the Roman soldiers and common people, appears to have been termed ovos, and vinegar (vin aigre) is sour wine, it is not difficult to reconcile the two accounts, in what is most material to the facts here recorded."

Bochart thinks it to be the same herb as the evangelist calls "Toowños, hyssop; a species of which growing in Judea, he proves from Isaac Ben Orman, an Arabian writer, to be so bitter as not to be eatable; and Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Nonnus 98, took the hyssop mentioned by St. John to be poisonous. Theophylact expressly tells us the hyssop was added, ως δηλητεριώδες, as being deleterious, or poisonous; and Nonnus, in his paraphrase, says,

Ωρεγεν ύσσωπω κεκερασμενον οξος ολεθρου

One gave the deadly acid mix'd with hyssop.

In Jer. viii. 14; ix. 15, to give water of gall to drink, denotes very bitter affliction. Comp. Lament. iii. 19.

In Habakkuk, ii. 15, we read, "Woe to him who maketh his neighbour drink; who putteth his flaggon to him, and maketh him drunken, that he may look on his nakedness:" which several versions render by words expressive of gall, or venom; that is what in the issue would prove so. Perhaps the prophet hints at the conduct of Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, toward king Zedekiah: "He gave him gall to drink, and made him drunk, 98 Cited in Martini Lexicon, art. Hyssopus.

that he might insult over his nakedness." The Rabbins relate, that one day Nebuchadnezzar, at an entertainment, sent for Zedekiah, and gave him an intoxicating liquor to drink, purposely to expose him to ridicule.

"The gall of bitterness," Acts, viii. 23, signifies the most desperate disposition of mind, the most incurable malignity; as difficult to be corrected as to change gall into sweetness. HEMLOCK.

See

There is another word, MERERATHI, from marar, which our translators render "gall," in Job, xvi. 13; xx. 14, 25. In two of the places, the human bile is intended; in the other, the venom of the asp.

In the story of Tobit, vi. 5; viii. 13, the gall of a fish is mentioned as being used to cure his father's eyes. Pliny, N. H. 1. xxviii. c. 10, says, the gall of a fish is prescribed for sore eyes; “ad oculorum medicamenta utilius habetur.”

As this word occurs only in Numbers, xi. 5, some doubts have arisen respecting the plant intended. From its being coupled with leeks and onions, there can be but little doubt that the garlick is meant. The Talmudists frequently mention the use of this plant among the Jews, and their fondness of it. "Moris autem apud Judæus erat allium indere omni pulmento, ad conciliandum illi saporem 99." And Salomon Zevi thus defends the practice; "Hereditate hanc consuetudinem a majoribus nostris ad nos transiisse arbitror, quibus allium vehementer arrisisse dicitur Numb. xi. Allium vero, Talmudis testimonio, cibus judicatur saluberrimus 1."

That garlicks grew plenteously in Egypt, is asserted by Dioscorides, lib. i. p. 80; where they were much esteemed, and were both eaten and worshiped 2.

"Then gods were recommended by their taste.
Such savoury deities must needs be good,

Which serv'd at once for worship and for food."

So Prudentius, describing the superstition of the Egyptians,

says,

"Numina

Porrum et cepe nefas imponere nubibus ausi
Alliaque ex terra cœli super astra colere."

Hasselquist, however says, p. 290, "that garlick does not grow in Egypt, and, though it is much used, it is brought from

99 Tract. Chilaim, c. i. § 3. c. 6. § 10; Nedar, viii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 10; Maaseroth, 8; Edajoth, ii. 6; Maschir, vi. 2; Tib. Jom. ii. 3; Ohaloth, vi. 6; Oketsim, i. 2,3; Peah, vi. 9, 10; Terumoth, vii. 7; Maimon. Schemit. ve Jobel, vii. 11; Conf. Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. in verbum.

1 Theriac. Jud. c. i. § 20.

2 Pliny reports, lib. xix. c. 6, that onions and garlicks were reckoned among the deities of Egypt, and that they even swore by them. See also Minucius Felix, c. xxviii. p. 145, ed. Davisii, and Note.