tedly, "Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening; and whosoever bears ought of their carcass, shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening" (vers. 24, 25, 28, 31, 40, 41). Thus a nice gradation is established between touching and carrying an unclean carcass, and a decided ceremonialism is everywhere manifest; for the levitical spirit had begun to pervade religion and all relations of life. But an additional and a very remarkable difference is apparent. Another levitical legislator was not satisfied with measures of lustration so lenient, in cases of defilement by unclean carcasses; he looked even upon involuntary or inadvertent pollution as an offence to be expiated by a signal act of religious penance; and he ordained a sin-offering for any such emergency whatever (v. 2, 3). How this rigorous and oppressive law was abandoned, has been pointed out in another place (see Comm. on Lev. I. 41, 42, 509). PHILOLOGICAL REMARKS. meaning of the term a

The

cannot

be doubtful as regards the language, whatever difficulties it may offer with respect to the sense: it is "a creeping thing with wings"; the Sept. renders literally ἑρπετὰ τῶν πετεινῶν; and so Onk, and Jonath. 88; Bunsen not inaptly "alles geflügelte Kleingethier"; inaccurately Vulg. omne de volucribus; Luther "was sich reget unter den Vögeln"; Rosenm. insecta salientia; indistinctly Michaelis "alles Mittelding von Geflügeltem"; Nachmanides explains, "The winged creatures with four legs, the neck and head of which are bent downward, as in reptiles, and do not, as in birds, rise upward"; but he omits to

give instances of animals so peculiar; Jonathan who, as has been stated above, inserts after these words, "the species of flies, and the species of wasps, and the species of bees" (comp. Talm. Chull. 65, 66), adds at the end "but bee-honey may be eaten"; for Jewish tradition, though as a rule strictly adhering to the canon, that whatever comes from an unclean creature is itself unclean (see supra p. 129), declared the honey of bees unobjectionable, because it is not the direct produce of the insects, but a preparation from the gathered juices of herbs (comp. Talm. Bechor. 7; Maimon. De Cib. Vet. III. 3; Yor. Deah § 81. 8). In ver. 42, Targ. Jonath.

וכל הילך על ארבע וכ' renders the words

the

"all that go upon all four from the serpent to the centiped (or milliped b) which has many feet" (a class connecting the crustacea with the insects); while the Talmud (Chull. 67) understands by as scorpion, which belongs to the spidertribe. Hence the phrase "going upon all four" by, as in some modern languages, evidently pointed to the low or crawling movement of the body near the ground, rather than to the exact number of feet: therefore, whereas in ver. 20 it is taken literally, it is in the following verse unmistakably applied to insects with six legs, although these creatures are immediately afterwards described as

"above their feet to leap therewith" (see infra). The sense of is expressed by all ancient translators;

is found in the Samaritan codex, and in many manuscripts of Kennic. and De Rossi (comp. Var. Lect. I. 94, 95); while the reading , taken in its usual sense, would be utterly unintelligible in the context, though it has been expressed by Luther a. o., and supported by early Jewish casuists who translate, "which, though having no at the time, grow them later" (Talm. Chull. 65). If is to be retained, it must be considered as identical in meaning with, and as differing from it merely in orthography; it is not impossible, as has been conjectured, that, being in ancient times often written s, withs otiosum (see Gramm. II. p. 59), was in some cases, by a questionable application of scriptio defectiva, written

. Certain it is, that the same Kethiv and Keri (s and ) occur in several other passages also, where the Keri is required by the sense (Exod. XXI.8; Lev. XXV. 30; 1 Sam. II. 3; Isai. IX. 2); while in others (as Job XLI.4) the Kethivs, and in others again (as 1 Sam. XX. 2) the Keris is preferable (comp.also 2 Sam.XVIII.12 -Keth., Ker.; Mic.II.11—Keth. , other reading ; and on the Masoretic interchange of or with see Geiger's Jüd. Zeitschr. VI. 2131). No uncertainty is possible as to the entire phrase in which the characteristic of the locusts is set forth,

אשר לו כרעים ממעל לרגליו לנתר בהן על

7, that is literally, "which have thighs above their feet to leap therewith upon the earth". It must be observed, (1.) Those words do not describe the locusts' legs generally, but

only the third or hindmost pair, for these alone differ in their use and structure from the legs of other insects. (2.) These legs consist indeed, like those of all insects, of three joints and no more, but the second joint, which is above the tarsi or the series of smaller segments terminating the foot, is, in locusts, particularly long and powerful, and is used by them to stem themselves on the ground, and by these means to leap considerably, in some instances 200 times their full length (comp. Job XXXIX. 20). (3.) This second joint must be understood by , which fully admits this sense (see Comm. on Levit. I. 478), while the lowest set of joints, or the tarsi, is appropriately expressed by, the foot in the stricter sense. (The Arabs call the two springing legs simply feet, Nieb. Arab. 170.) Therefore, the words under discussion might be thus paraphrased: the insects that have in their hindmost legs the second joint, or that above the proper foot, so strong as to be able to leap therewith upon the earth. Impossible meanings have been attributed to the

they have been : ממעל לרגליו words

explained to signify "over and above" or "besides the feet", yielding the translation "all that, besides the feet, have two hind-legs" (so Sommer, Bibl. Abh. I. 259, Bunsen, Luzzatto), as if by could ever have that meaning (Isai. VI. 2 is no parallel at all), and as if the locusts alone of the class had six feet; or "above the four ordinary legs, near the neck" (as Rashi, Bartenurah, and other Jewish writers surprisingly interpret), whereas the springing legs are the lowest or last, and not the

and ; ממעל לרגליו entirely omitting

Luther erroneously ("und nicht mit zweien Beinen auf Erden hüpfet", see supra): — refers to which

is feminine (comp. Am. III. 12), for the locusts leap by means of the middle joint, not by the proper foot (or tarsi), which is short and weak. The reading, therefore, in the Samaritan Codex and some manuscripts, is not acceptable.

Just as the Arabs eat some kinds of locusts and reject others, and as the Persians even divide all locusts into "lawful" and "forbidden" classes, so the levitical legislator permitted to the Hebrews only some of the many genera which have frequently, though somewhat conflictingly, been descri

naturalists. These distinguish the green and the yellow, the red and the grey, the light and fat, the flying and the leaping locust; and the subgenera are so numerous, that an approximate identification of the four species mentioned in our text is perhaps all that can ever be expected. As a rule, the larger kinds only, which are comprised under the old generic name of Acridia, are eaten; they have short antennae not pointed at the end, and their prothorax is knobbed underneath and raised above. The female of the "Muken" () is especially esteemed both as palatable and

nutritious. It is well known that locusts are the favourite food of fowls,

pigs, and monkeys, but above all of some birds, as the starling and red thrush (turdus roseus), and especially

a ,(سمرمر) the Samarmar or Samarmog

black bird somewhat larger than our sparrow, which devours a vast number, and kills many more, whence it is kept and scrupulously protected in provinces liable to the locust plague; for a similar reason, jackdaws were, in Thessaly and Illyria, fed at the public expense, because they destroy both the eggs of the locusts and their young brood (comp. Ael. Nat. An. III. 12; Plin. XI. 29 or 35; Ritter, Erdkunde, VIII. 796, 798, 804).

1.The (from 2 to be multiplied, to be many) seems to point with some distinctness to the "migratory locusts"(acridium migratorium or gryllus gregarius), which often fly in stupendous swarms over various parts of Asia and elsewhere, voraciously

devastating all vegetation (see Comm. on Ex. pp. 160-163); "like the locusts in multitude" (a) was

a tail but no "hump"; Sept. ȧxpís, Vulg. locusta; Saad., Ar. Erp. ❤siz, and in Num. 1. c. J, the general name for locust; Engl. Vers. grasshopper; Michael. Heuschrecke nach der vierten Häutung; Luzzatto grillo; Bunsen Heupferd.

Some translators (as Luther, Dathe, De Wette, and Zunz), attempting no version whatever, retain the Hebrew terms, and we have partially followed their example. The fourfold addition

may be explained למינהו or למינו of

from passages like Joel I. 4 and II. 25, where as sub-genera ofs are mentioned, and (comp. Ex. X. 13, 19 with Ps. LXXVIII. 46; CV. 34; see also 1 Ki. VIII. 37; Nah. III. 15, 16; 2 Chr. VI. 28); although attempts have been made to prove, that the four terms both in Joel and in our passage merely represent four different metamorphoses or ages of the chief or migratory kind of locust (so Credner and Meier on Joel ll. cc., Michaelis); in our law certainly the insertion of "after its kind" which follows each name militates against such an opinion (comp. Oedmann, Sammlungen, II. 113 sqq.; Hitzig on Joel). —

to

(in ver. 24, "and by these you are rendered unclean") clearly points to the preceding injunctions those on the "winged creeping things" (vers. 20 sqq.); it is possibly even meant as a conclusion to the whole anterior section on the unclean quadrupeds, fishes, birds, and a 772; for the detail with respect to this last class of creatures (vers. 21 sqq.) was probably the earliest addition made to the original law as preserved in Deuteronomy (see p. 125). It is impossible to refer to the following verses (so Siphra, Raschi, Luzzatto), because, in that case, the commands on "winged creeping things" would be incomplete, as they would be without provisions with respect

to touching or carrying their carcasses; while, on the other hand, the commands on the unclean quadrupeds (vers. 26 sqq.) would have such regulations twice, and in the identical words (vers. 24, 25, and vers. 27, 28).— Later Judaism, holding the washing of garments insufficient when carcasses of unclean animals have been carried, supposed that, in such cases, the command of bathing the body is always implied as a matter of course, and is only omitted for the sake of brevity (in vers. 25, 28, 40; so Ebn Ezra, Nachman., a. o.); indeed some Codices of Kennicot and the Samaritan text add in vers. 25 and 40,

.and in ver, כבס בגדיו after ורחין במים

40 some copies of the Sept. insert zai Aoúsetal Boat (comp. De Rossi Var. Lect. I. 95). Considering the full and studiedly minute detail of our chapter, it is not probable that so important an injunction would have been suppressed, had it been deemed requisite; even in describing the lustrations necessary after having eaten of an unclean carcass, the text makes no mention of bathing; it uses in fact the identical formula with regard to carrying and eating (ver. 40); and even Ebn Ezra (on ver. 39), evidently weighing this circumstance, remarks that "he who carries the carcass of an ass, defiles himself as much as he who eats of it, since both carry it alike, the one externally, the other internally." Yet the vast difference between these two modes of "carrying carcass" could not fail to strike Ebn Ezra himself, and he declared soon afterwards (on ver. 42), with other Jewish authorities, that "the consumed food turns to flesh in the body of the consumer" (see p. 124). It is only in a later section that bathing is prescribed after partaking of unlawful food; it is there insisted upon with manifest emphasis (XVII. 15,