18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

19 O LORD, to thee will I cry for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilder

ness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.

20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Verse 4. The palmerworm.'-The Hebrew writers generally agree that the four insects mentioned in this verse are different species of the locust; and this opinion has been supported by Bochart with his usual ability and research. There is, however, a very strong objection to this conclusion in the fact that the three rendered 'palmerworm,' cankerworm,' and caterpiller,' in our version, were not regarded as locusts by the Seventy, who were likely in this matter to be acquainted with the real meaning of the Hebrew words, and who wrote much earlier than any of those Hebrew writers who consider all the words to denote varieties of the locust. Without therefore pretending to arrive at any positive conclusion on so precarious a subject, we shall regard the three insects in question as different from locusts, for the sake of obtaining a view which shall give us the advantage of being in agreement both with the Septuagint and with the original text, so far as the meaning of the latter can be ascertained.

First, then, as to the palmerworm.' The original name is Dgazam, kάμη of the Septuagint. This seems to be the caterpillar, which was called eruca by the Romans, ab erodendo, from gnawing, as Isidore remarks. The ancients describe it as a worm which rolls up itself in the leaves of herbs, and especially the vine, including perhaps several species of insect under one name. Plautus, an old Latin poet, speaks of it as a mischievous beast, that rolls itself up in a vine leaf. Imitatus nequam bestiam et maleficam involutam in pampino.' It does not fly, like the locust, from plant to plant, or run hither and thither like some other insects, and leave them half eaten, but continues upon the perishing herbage till by its sluggish motion and lazy jaws it has devoured the whole. The ravages made by caterpillars are too familiar to render any expatiation upon them necessary. A reference to the respective meanings of the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek terms makes it probable that the same kind of insect was intended by D, Kάμяη, and eruca. The first is from 1 gazaz, to cut or shear; the second from кáμTTW, to bend; and the third from erodendo, gnawing-the first and last pointing out to us its mischievous operations, and the second the habit of rolling itself up in a leaf to protect itself against those enemies which are every moment upon the watch to secure it. The Arabic version has dud, which seems to be a general denomination for what we call the larva state of an insect, such as, for instance, the caterpillar is in respect of the butterfly, being then in the second grade of its progress towards the perfect or imago condition.

-Locust.

arbeh, &pis of the Septuagint and the jerad of the Arabic version. The present is the common name for the locust in the Hebrew Scriptures. The locust and its ravages have been slightly alluded to in former notes; and on the present occasion it may not be amiss to glance at the Gryllus Migratorius in respect of the order and family to which it belongs, the Orthoptera and the Saltatoria. All the insects of this order are characterized by having soft or pliant covers, under which the true wings are folded, often with the elegance of a fan. The mouth has its parts very distinct and prominent, especially the mandibles, which are strong and robust, and seem destined for the work of destruction. Some of the grasshoppers apply these jaws with so much pertinacity, that we have seen them suffer their heads to

by their voracious disposition. The female is generally provided with a sword-like appendage, which serves to conduct the eggs to the ground, where they are hatched, and assume the shape of the perfect insect, except in the absence of wings and wing-cases. These insects are provided with a crop or membranous stomach, formed like a bagpipe, and a muscular gizzard, presenting a singular analogy to the gallinaceous fowls, the hen, the partridge, and the dove.

The account we have given of the strength and magnitude of the mandibles possessed by the locust tribe illustrates what is said in a subsequent verse, For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a lioness.' With these destructive weapons the swarm of locusts had stripped the bark off the vine and the figtree, and rendered them so white and bare that nothing more was to be found. It hath cast it away,' or forsaken it, after having completed the work of devastation. -Cankerworm.'-The original word

yelek, is translated by the Septuagint Bpouxos, bruchus. Although translated cankerworm' here, it is translated caterpiller' in Jer. i. 14. 'Cankerworm' means any kind of worm that preys on fruit, and neither such nor the caterpillar can be intended, because in Isa. iii. 16 the yelek is described as devouring and then fleeing away, which also shews that it cannot be, as some imagine, the unfledged locust. In Jer. li. 27 it is described as rough- the rough yelek; and since the word rendered rough' as a name is used elsewhere to denote nails' or sharppointed spikes,' Michaelis and others imagine that it refers to the sharp-pointed feet of some species of chaffer; but Professor Tyschen, with greater probability, refers it to some rough or bristly species of locust, such as the Gryllus hæmatopus of Linnæus, whose thighs are ciliated with hairs. Spines and bristles variously disposed belong, however, to other species of grylli; and although, therefore, this may be regarded as the characteristic indicated, it still remains difficult to determine the particular species. Caterpiller. The word is here chasil, which the Sept. renders by Bpovxos, and the Vulgate bruchus. It is the word commonly translated caterpiller'

in the Authorized Version. The word from which the Hebrew name is derived signifies to consume' or 'devour,' indicating a creature whose voracity is its chief characteristic, and this belongs to all the species of locust. All the ancient interpreters, indeed, concur in referring the word to the locust tribe of insects, but they are not agreed whether it signifies any particular species of locust, or that it is the name for any of those states or transformations through which the locust passes in its progress from the egg to the perfect insect. The Latin fathers usually regard it as the larva of the locust, and the Greek as the name of our adult locust. The Latins gave the name of bruchus to the young locust before it has wings, called it attelabus when it begins to fly, and locusta when it is fully able to fly. Yet in Nahum iii. 16 the Latin not less than the Greek are obliged by the original to ascribe flight to the chasil, although that quality is denied them by the name which consistency obliges them there as elsewhere to give to the chasil. That, therefore, is one of the testing passages which shew that an interpretation which might in most places pass as probable from the indeterminateness of the original, must nevertheless be unfounded. It is clear that the creature, if a locust at all, must be a perfect locust, endued with power of flight. That it was a locust we cannot but understand from the present context, and from the general applicability of that interpretation to all the places in which the name occurs, as well as from the testimony of the Septuagint. We regard the chasil, therefore, as a species of locust, but we are unable to collect any intimation to enable us to determine the particular species which may have been intended.

7. Barked my fig-tree. This refers to the ravages of the locust, which when the leaves and fruits, the locality on which it rests, are not sufficient to appease the devouring appetite of its inconceivable hosts, does not hesitate to attack the bark, especially of the smaller branches, and of such trees as that of the fig. This does not, that we recollect, often happen, and it is the consummation of the miseries which this dreadful insect inflicts-because it destroys the hope-so far as fruit-trees are concerned, not of one year only but of many years. See the citations in

Credner's Joel, and in Rosenmüller's Scholia-also in his edition of Bochart's Hierozoicon. To bark a fruit-tree, and in particular a fig-tree, and thereby destroy its vitality, is in the East regarded as a great enormity if wilfully committed in war or in peace. It is almost never done, under even the highest exasperations of invading warfare.

12. The palm tree.'-The palm tree has been slightly noticed on different occasions, and a representation of its fruit-a cluster of dates-has been given under Ps. cxii. In Exod. xv., we have also given an engraving of a remarkable wild palm growing in Sinai. We now add further pictorial illustrations, with such supplementary observations as the subject seems to require.

The numerous allusions to the palm, particularly in the poetical Scriptures, sufficiently intimate the estimation in

DATE PALM (Phoenix dactylifera).

PALM GROVE.

which it was held, not only for the surpassing grace of its form, but on account of its useful properties, for the variety and importance of which it is not exceeded, and perhaps scarcely equalled, by any product of the vegetable kingdom. There are many varieties of the palm family, some of them not very well defined; but there is no doubt that the palm tree known and prized so highly by the Hebrews was the common date palm (Phoenix dactylifera); which is therefore that which should engage our principal attention. That the date palm was anciently frequent in Palestine is expressly affirmed by ancient writers-so much was this the case, indeed, that the tree appears to have been made by the Romans a symbol of the Hebrew nation. We thus find it on the medals which commemorate the victories of Vespasian and Titus; while upon a medal of Domitian it is delineated as an emblem of Neapolis or Naplosa, the ancient Shechem, and upon another of Trajan it appears as the symbol of Sepphoris, the metropolis of Galilee. And the palm tree in Judæa does still mournfully typify the desolate condition of the Hebrew people. It was prosperous in their prosperous days, and has become desolate with their desolation. Palestine is not now a country of the palm. Such extensive

(

plantations and forests of this generous tree as adorn and bless the plain of Egypt, and the borders and oases of the north African and Arabian deserts, are nowhere seen in Judæa. There are some trees in the south and in the plain of Jericho, the ancient city of palms;' but at Jerusalem, Shechem, and other places more to the north, two or three palms are rarely seen together; and even these, as their fruit seldom or never comes to maturity, are of no further service than, like the palm tree of Deborah, to shade the dwellings of the inhabitants, and to supply them with branches at their solemn festivals. As it is not our object to enter into any extended botanical account of this tree, we content ourselves with introducing the following very clear description from an interesting statement concerning it in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge' (Vegetable Substances, i. 353). The date palm, though some of the family are more majestic, is still a beautiful tree. The stem of it shoots up, in one cylindrical column, to the height of fifty or sixty feet, without branch or division, and of the same thickness throughout its whole length. When it attains this height, its diameter is from a foot to eighteen inches. From the summit of this majestic trunk, it throws out a magnificent crown of leaves, which are equally graceful in their formation and their arrangement. The main stems of these leaves are from eight to twelve feet long, firm, shining, and tapering; and each embraces at its insertion a considerable part of the trunk. The trunk of the palm is in fact made up of the remains of leaves, the ends of which are prominent just under the crown, but more obliterated towards the root of the tree. The bottoms of these leaves are enveloped in membranous sheaths, or fringed with very tough fibrous matter. These leaves are pinnated, or in the form of feathers, each leaf being composed of a great number of long narrow leaflets, which are alternate, and of a bright lively green. Near the base of the leaf these leaflets are often three feet long; but even then they are not one inch in breadth; neither do they open flat, but remain with a ridge in the middle, like the keel of a boat. When the leaves are young they are twisted together, and matted up with loose fibres, which open and disperse as the leaf expands. The young leaflet is also armed at the extremity with a hard black spine or thorn. They are more stiff and firmer than the leaves of any other tree.'

The fibrous character of the stem, composed of the roots of leaves, renders the trunk useless as timber-indeed it cannot be called timber-but very valuable for other purposes. The character of the wood of palms has lately been an object of attention; and a communication on the subject from Mr. Gardner, residing in Brazil, was read at the meeting of the British Association, in 1837. By making a vertical section of a palm four inches in circumference, Mr. Gardner traced, very plainly, woody fibres proceeding from the base of the leaves to the centre of the stem, at an angle of 18°; they then turned downwards and outwards to within a few lines of the external corticle of the stem, running parallel with its axis; the distance between these

two points being about two feet and a half. The fibres were traced quite distinctly up to the centre of the leaf. In answer to questions proposed by Professor Lindley, the author further stated,-1. That the wood of palms was always hard and compact outside, gradually getting softer towards the centre; the fibres of the upper leaves not descending to so great a length as the lower. 2. The wood is much harder at the bottom than at any other part of the stem; the inhabitants of tropical climates using only this part for economical purposes.

It should be observed that the lower leaves of the crown droop and wither every year, and are cut off at the base in such a manner that the stumps left upon the trunk, from the base to the leafy top, give the stem a remarkable appearance, and have the advantage of serving as steps to enable persons to ascend to the summit, which would otherwise be a very difficult enterprise. This ascent is necessary, not only to lop the decayed leaves and to gather the fruit, but to impregnate the fruit-bearing tree. For the date palm is a dioecious tree, having the male flowers in one plant, and the female, or fruiting ones, in another. The male tree bears no fruit, and that of the female would be abortive without communication from the flowers of the male. This distinction has been known and acted upon from the most ancient times in Africa and the southwest of Asia: and Scott Waring (Tour to Shiraz) suggests that it is from the neglect of this that none of the palms of India bear fruit. We notice this chiefly as furnishing a reason, beyond the mere grace of its form, for the name of the date palm, Tamar, being used by the Hebrews as a proper name for females; and apparently a very common one, for of the few women whose names occur in Scripture two bear this name, the daughter-in-law of Judah, and the sister of Absalom.

19. The fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.'-This appears to refer to the custom of setting the parched herbage on fire before the autumnal rains; with a further allusion, probably, to the sometimes destructive spread of the conflagration far beyond the intention of those by whom it was kindled.

The flame hath burnt all the trees of the field.'Some think that this alludes to the barbarous custom of felling trees by fire, which still prevails among nations which might at the first view seem somewhat too far advanced for a practice so coarse and unskilful. We do not, however, apprehend that the custom existed among the Israelites, or is here alluded to by the prophet. The antecedent clause, which describes the same fire as having destroyed the pastures of the wilderness,' clearly intimates that he has in view the occasional ignition of the woods, in a season of drought from the fires accidentally or purposely kindled among the dry herbage. Such fires are not unknown even in less warm latitudes. It is but lately (1847) that the papers recorded the ignition of a pine forest in Prussia, which burned with great fury for more than sixteen days.

day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.

4 The appearance of them is as the ap

2 Heb. of generation and generation.

pearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.

5 Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

6 Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather "black

ness.

7 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks :

8 Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the 'sword, they shall not be wounded.

9 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

10 The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

11 And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?

12 T Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

14 'Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?

the heathen should "rule over them: "wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?

18

Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.

19 Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:

20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.

21 ¶ Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things.

22 Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.

23 Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain "moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.

16.

24 And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.

25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you and my people shall never be ashamed.

27 And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed..

28 ¶ And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

32 And it shall come to pass, that "whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD 18 Chap. 3. 15.

shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

10 Rom. 10. 13.

Verse 2. A day of darkness and of gloominess.'-In the preceding chapter the prophet describes the locusts as the army of God; and now, pursuing the same metaphor, he describes more particularly their fierceness and speed (v. 4), the noise and din of their approach (v. 5), the regularity of their march (v. 7, 8), their obscuring the light of day by their number and flight (v. 2-10), the havock they should occasion (v. 3), the places they should invade (v. 7, 9), and the consternation and distress which they should bring upon all the inhabitants of the land (v. 6). We are forbidden by our limits to give to the various details of this sublime description all the illustration which it might receive, and which our reading and personal observations might enable us to supply. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a very few observations. In the first place, we beg the reader to observe how many points of this description have been unintentionally illustrated and confirmed by Volney, in his account of the ravages of the locusts in Syria. One might almost imagine that he had written to illustrate the prophet. 'Syria, as well as Egypt, Persia, and almost all the south of Asia, is subject to another calamity, no less dreadful (than earthquakes); I mean those clouds of locusts so often mentioned by travellers. The quantity of these insects is incredible to all who have not themselves witnessed their astonishing numbers; the whole earth is covered with them for the space of several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the trees and herbage may be heard to a great distance, and resembles that of an army foraging in secret. The Tahtars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals; one would imagine that fire had followed their progress. Wherever their myriads spread, the verdure of the country disappears, as if a covering had been removed; trees and plants, stripped of their leaves, and reduced to their naked boughs and stems, cause the dreary image of winter to succeed, in an instant, to the scenery of spring. When these clouds of locusts take their flight, to surmount any obstacle, or to traverse more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may be literally said to be obscured by them. Happily this calamity is not frequently repeated, for it is the inevitable forerunner of famine and the maladies it occasions.' (Travels in Egypt and Syria, i. 283-4.) This is really an admirable condensed commentary on the present description; and as such may be taken in the place of a longer statement, which could do little more than corroborate and amplify its details. We shall therefore only add that some notion may be formed of the point of view in which the Orientals regard these destructive creatures from the meaning which they give to the inscription which they think may be deciphered upon their wings. Some allege the characters to be Chaldaic, and signify the scourge of God;' whilst others contend that they form Arabic letters, and read, 'We are the army of the mighty God: we have each ninety and nine eggs; and had we but the hundredth, we would consume the world and all that it contains.'

4. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses,' etc. This may perhaps allude rather to their rapidity and force than to their form. We may however state that the first time we saw locusts browsing, with their wings closed, the idea of comparing them to horses arose spontaneously to our minds-as we had not previously met with such a comparison, and did not at the time advert to the present text. The resemblance in the head first struck our attention, and this notion having once arisen, other analogies were found or imagined in its

general appearance and action in feeding. We have since found the observation very common. The Italians, indeed, from this resemblance, call the locust cavaletta, or little horse. Sir W. Ouseley reports,-Zakaria Cazvini divides the locusts into two classes, like horsemen and footmen, "mounted and pedestrian ;" which will call to the recollection of a biblical reader some passages from Joel and the Apocalypse.' For the latter, he of course refers to Rev. ix. 7. Niebuhr says that he heard from a Bedouin, near Basrah, a particular comparison of the locust to other animals; but as this passage of Scripture (in Revelations) did not occur to him at the time, he thought it a mere fancy of the Arab's, till he heard it repeated at Baghdad. He compared the head of the locust to that of a horse, the breast to that of a lion, the feet to those of a camel, the belly with that of a serpent, the tail with that of a scorpion, and the feelers (if Niebuhr remembered rightly) to the hair of a virgin. Compare this with the passage alluded to.

6

6. All faces shall gather blackness.'-For the face to be made white is in the East used to express all kinds of felicity, prosperity, and favour. For the face to gather blackness, means just the reverse, namely that all kinds of calamity, misfortune, and grief may or shall befal the parties concerned. The anecdote of Kumeil, which is related in Ockley's History of the Saracens, illustrates and defines this sense:- Kumeil, the son of Ziyad, was a man of fine wit. One day Hejage made him come before him, and reproached him, because in such a garden, and before such and such persons, whom he named to him, he had made a great many imprecations against him, saying, "The Lord blacken his face!" that is, fill him with shame and confusion; and wished that his neck was cut off and his blood shed.' Here the illustration ends; but it would be unfair to Kumeil not to spare a few lines more to report how by his happy mother wit he extricated himself from this difficulty and saved his life-though, doubtless, at some expense of the strict truth. He said: It is true I did say such words in such a garden, but then I was under a vine arbour, and was looking at a bunch of grapes that was not yet ripe, and I wished it might be turned black soon, that they might be cut off, and be made

wine of.'

6

20. His stink shall come up,' etc.-The figures employed in this verse are derived from the fate which often terminates the career of the locust legions--but which, at the same time, is frequently accompanied with most unpleasant and disastrous effects from the stench attending the decay of such enormous masses of animal matter. The course which the locusts take is very much determined by the direction of the wind. This sometimes drives them into the sea, or, in continuing their onward course over the sea, they alight upon it when weary, and are drowned; and perhaps they do so as much from being unacquainted with the sea and unable to distinguish it from land, as from weariness. But storms, whether on the land or sea, are the chief agents of their destruction: then, falling to the earth, they cover it to a vast extent with their bodies, and fill the rivers; or, if upon the sea, at no great distance from the land, the continued storms, or the common operation of wind and tide, cast up their bodies on the shore, which they line in dense masses, casting an intolerable odour far around, and by which pestilential disorders are necessarily generated. In connection with the whole account, and the humiliation and supplication recommended on the occasion, we have been