This notion of the aiun, gives also a spirit to the istory of Saul, who when his father's atunuth were st, was at no little pains to seek them; morever, as besides being valuable they were uncommon, he might the more readily hear if they had been noticed and picked up by any one; and possibly this kads to the true interpretation of the servant's proposed application to Samuel, verse 6. q.d. "In his ice of magistracy this honourable man may have heard of these strayed rarities being found, and secured by some one, peradventure he can show us way we should go. This keeps clear, both of expected fortune telling, or of the exercise of prophetic prediction in Samuel on this occasion, which apprehend is desirable. This implies the competence, if not the wealth, of Saul's family. the We have now to remark the allusion of the dying Jacob to his son Judah, Gen. xlix. 11. "Binding his foal, oireh, to the vine, and his son of his atun to his vine of Sorek." This idea of a capital kind of ass, and of Judah's possessing young of the same breed, implies a dignity, a fertility, and a prolongation of both, which does not appear in the usual phraseology of the passage. Thus we see that these atumuth are found in Scripture in the occupation only of judges, patriarchs, and other great men; insomuch, that where these are, there is dignity, either expressed or implied. They were also a present for a prince; forJacob presented Esau with twenty, Gen. xxxii. 15. What then shall we say to the wealth of Job, who possessed a thouand! could any greater proof of unlimited prosperity exist? But we must proceed to notice another word which is rendered wild ass, by translators, Job xxxix. 5. orud, and which seems to be the same as in the Chaldee of Dan. v. 21. is called oredia, or orudia, the plural of the former. Mr. Parkhurst supposes that this word denotes "the brayer;" and that "the animal is spoken of as one only; which proves para and orud to be only two names for the same animal," in this place; but, these names may perhaps refer to different races, though of the same animal; so that a description of the properties of one may apply to both, though not without some variation. Who hath sent out the, para, wild ass, free? Or, who hath loosed the bands of the orud, wild ass? The reader has seen how fond the onager was of salt; and we find a reference to the saltings, in the Hebrew here, which is lost in our translation; wheththese are salt marshes, or salt deserts, seems to be of little consequence, as we find salt was an article of VOL. IV. 37 which this animal could eat a handful. This greatly adds to the expression and correctness of the Hebrew naturalist. Animals which inhabit the desert, must often be at a loss for water; and this animal, says the professor, would often pass two whole days without drinking. Besides the above, in Daniel we read, that " Nebuchadnezzar dwelt with the orudia, wild asses." Certainly, this monarch was not banished to the desert, the open mountains, of Job's orud, but was at most kept safely in an enclosure of his own park; in which park curious and exotic animals were also kept, for state and pleasure. If this be correct, then this orud was somewhat at least of a rarity, at Babylon, and it might be of a kind different from the para; as it is denoted by another name. May it be the gicquétéi of professor Pallas, the "wild mule" of Mongolia, which surpasses the onager in size, beauty, and perhaps in swiftness? Nov. Comment. Acad. Petrop. vol. xix. for we remark, that the professor advises to cross this breed with that of the onager, as a mean of perfectionating the species of the ass: consequently, it is allied to this species, and may be alluded to in the passage of Job, where it is associated with the para, [unless some other exotic breed of ass was better known to Job, or in the countries connected with Babylon.] It is the hemi-onos, or half ass, of Aristotle; was found in his days in Syria; and he celebrates it for its swiftness and fecundity, a breeding mule being thought a prodigy. Pliny, from the report of Theophrastus, speaks of this species being found in Cappadocia. Its general description is that of a mule: its colour light yellowish gray, growing paler toward the sides; length from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail, 6 feet 7 inches; height, 3 feet 9 inches. Inhabits the south of Siberia, the vast plains and deserts of western Tartary, and sandy deserts. Lives in small herds; each male having four, five, or more females. Is absolutely untameable by the Tartars; even those taken young: is proverbial for swiftness; exceeds even the antelope. The history already given of the manners of the onager may supply the rest of the description: as it greatly resembles that animal. Thus we have proposed those authorities which induce us to adopt a distinction of breeds, or races, if not of kinds, in the species of ass; and the reader will agree with us in the propriety of maintaining such a distinction, as countenanced by Scripture, and by natural history also. As to the oirim, rendered "young asses," Isai. xxxvi. 24. we need not suppose that they were a distinct breed, or species: but merely the ass in its state of maturity, strength, and vigour, as they are spoken of as carrying loads, tilling the ground, and contributing to other works of husbandry: yet we cannot help remarking a variation in the manner of spelling this word, which is rather suspicious. In Isai. xxxvi. 6. it is spelled ourim; in verse 24. we read of oirim labouring the earth in conjunction with oxen; this requires strength, and strength seems to be the character attributed to Ishmael, who was to be the oir of the wild ass, i.e. in its state of power, liveliness, and mettle, perhaps restiveness. This will allow also of a poetical climax in the words of Jacob, Gen. xlix. 11. "Binding his oireh, female foal of an ass, at her best estate, to the vine, the common vine, in its best estate also; and his son of his atun, superior kind of ass, and most highly valued, to his sorek, superior kind of grape vine, and that which he most esteemed. Here the parallelism is perfect, as well as the climax is regular. The upper figure on our Plate is the male onager, or wild ass; the lower figures are views of the female. Copied from Rozier. ** I understand, that an ass of the superior breed was brought from Egypt, by the colonel of one of the highland regiments which accompanied gen eral Abercrombie on his expedition to that country against the French invaders of it. The newspapers of Edinburgh mention the arrival of the regiment in the month of June, 1802, and notice this creature as being of fine proportions, and standing fourteen hands high. As this regiment passed through part of that city at 6 o'clock in the morning, the corps itself was not seen by all the town; and this ass by still fewer persons, as it was pretty much hid by the troops. Report valued this animal at 1000 guineas. UNICORN, REEM, RHINOCEROS. JOB XXXIX. 9, &c. Translation of No. xlvi. of Michaelis's "Questions proposed to the learned travellers in Arabia." "NOTWITHSTANDING SO many labours which truly learned men have undertaken, such as Bochart, Ludolph, and Schultens, to explain the import of the Hebrew word reem or raam, [O or Dx] that import remains still almost entirely concealed from us. The last mentioned writer seems to be the only one who has taken the right road for the discovery of the truth. Without loading the Hebrew language with a new animal, already well known to us, he contents himself with reporting whatever he has been able to collect from the Arabian writers relating to the word reem. He confesses, however, for himself, that after having considered what he produces, the animal referred to continues equally unascertained; because, no one of the writers has given a methodical description of it, nor has mentioned those characters, whereby it may be distinguished from other horned creatures, and especially from our bulls, when they are wild. What, however, seems to be certain is, that Golius has badly translated the Arabic reem by dorcas; and that the animal denoted by this term belongs to the bull kind, with this difference, that it is absolutely impossible to tame it. We see also, that the sacred text supposes a great resemblance between him and a bull, since Job is asked, whether he would dare to intrust the reem with such or such labours, as were performed by bullocks. The travellers will deliver us from all these doubts, and from our ignorance, by bringing a correct figure of the reem, with a methodical and circumstantial description. I beg them not to forget the manners, the swiftness, and natural ferocity of this animal; and to compare it carefully with the passage, Job xxxix. 9, &c." The following is Mr. Scott's note on the passage of Job, where the reem is particularly described. "The unicorn] the wild bull. The Hebrew name is reem, which appears from the allusions to it in Scripture to be a creature of great strength, with high and terrible horns, and of the beeve kind, Numb. xxiii. 22; xxiv. 8; Deut. xxxiii. 17; Psalm xxii. 13, 22; xxix. 6; xcii. 11; Isai. xxxiv. 6, 7. It cannot, therefore, be the unicorn, which is a fish in the north seas. The land unicorn is a mere fiction. Neither can it be the rhinoceros, which has but one horn, and that a very short one, placed just over the nose. We learn from Dr. Parsons, in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1743, that there is in Africa a species of rhinoceros that has always a double horn upon the nose. The Dr. produced to the members of the Royal Society a double horn of this creature, brought from the Cape of Good Hope. But neither Job nor the writer of the poem can be supposed to have heard of such an animal; nor will this circumstance of a double horn entitle it to the description of the reem. Neither is it the Arabian reem, which is a species of roe, and a weak, timid animal. It is most probably the wild bull, bred in the Syrian and Arabian deserts; which answers perfectly well to the characters of the Scripture reem. The Arabian poets are very copious in their descriptions of the hunting of this animal, and borrow many images from its beauty, swiftness, strength, and the loftiness of its horns. They represent it a very fierce and untameable beast, white on the back, with large shining eyes. The reader however ought to be informed, that one of the Arabian poets joins it with the roes; perhaps because they are both wild creatures. Damir, their great naturalist, in the chapter which he entitles, Of the wild bull, describes no other than a wild stag. But so Cæsar, speaking of the urus of the black for est in Germany, calls it bos cervi figura, a beers shaped like a stag, Schultens, in loc. Hieroz. p. i. 965, 966. Clodius, in his Lex. Select. says, that the reem occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible; and that its name is derived from , altum esse, on account of the talness of its stature or the loftiness of its horns. The reems are in effect called wild bulls by the Psalmist, Psalm xxii. For those whom he styles bulls of Bashan, i.e. of the mountains of Bashan, ver. 13. he calls reems, ver. 21. as though they were synonymous terms. In short, the reem must be supposed to be of the beeve kind; since it is represented in our author's description as qualified by its make and strength for the business of agriculture like the tame OX." "Or abide by thy crib ?] The original may be rendered, or will he lie all night on thy threshing floor? i.e. to guard it. Mr. Merrick has made it appear probable, that bulls were in the earliest ages employed, as dogs, to guard fields. Oxen are actually put to this use by the Hottentots." Mr. Parkhurst has also taken this side of the question; and he thus expresses his opinion. “As a noun □, and, Psalm xcii. 11. ', plur. D', the name of a horned unimal, Deut. xxxiii. 17; Psalm xcii. 11. remarkable for his strength, Numb. xxiii. 32. and of the beeve kind, with which he is mentioned, Deut. xxxiii. 17; Psalm xxix. 6; Isai. xxxiv. 7. In short, the name seems to denote the wild bull, so called from his height and size, in comparison with the tame. The above cited are all the passages wherein this noun occurs; and the LXX constantly render it μovoxepos, the unicorn, except in Isai. xxxiv. 7. where they have adpot, the big, or mighty ones. But that it cannot possibly mean an unicorn, if indeed there ever existed such an animal as that is usually described to be, it is evident from Deut. xxxiii. 17. where it is said of Joseph, p, his horns, are, p, the horns of a 7, On, with them he shall push the people, to, the ends of the earth, MI, and these (two horns namely, are) the ten thousands of Ephraim, and the thousands of Manasseh, i.e. the two tribes which sprang from Joseph. The Vulgate, in Psalm xxix. 6; xcii. 11; Isai. xxxiv. 7. renders it after the Lxx, by unicornis, but in Numb. xxiii. 22; Deut. xxxiv. 17. by rhinocerotis, the rhinoceros. Several learned men, and among the rest, Scheuzer, embrace this latter interpretation. But first, though it is certain that some rhinoceroses have, see Shaw's Travels, p. 430. note 1; Buffon, tom. ix. p. 334. two horns, yet many of them have but one, and this being placed on the nose, and bended back toward the forehead, is not formed for pushing, n, but for ripping up the trunks or bodies of the more soft and succulent trees, and reducing them into a kind of laths, which constitute a part of the animal's food. See Bruce's Travels, vol. v. p. 91. It is inconsistent therefore with the import of Deut. xxxiii. 17. to explain □ by the rhinoceros. 2dly, Not withstanding the remarks of Scheuzer, Numb. xxiii. 22. there seems no sufficient reason to think that the rhinoceros, which is a native, see Buffon's Hist. Nat. tom. viii. p. 135; tom. ix. p. 339, 340. only of the southern regions of Asia and Africa, was so much as known to the Israelites in the days of Moses, or even of David. I apprehend with the learned Bochart, and others, that, which occurs Job xxxix. 9, 10. and plur.0", Psalm xxii. 22. denote the same kind of animal as D; and indeed in the Psalms, more than thirty of Dr. Kennicott's codices read D. The description of Job represents the D to be a very strong, fierce, and untameable creature, and implies him to be of the beeve kind, see Scott's notes; and the in Psalm xxii. 22. are mentioned as having horns, and correspond to the bulls and strong bulls of Bashan, verse 3. And since the orthography of these words and D shows them most properly to belong to Dor, they may serve to confirm the relation between that root and above noted." The reader is now in possession of the strongest arguments and facts known in favour of their system when these gentlemen wrote. Since that time Dr. Anderson has described in his Recreations in Agriculture, a much larger creature of the beeve kind, than had been supposed to exist, which he calls the arnee. As the doctor's information is derived from the reports of a vessel which picked up a floating carcass of this immense animal in an inundation of the Ganges, the habits or nature of the creature remain unknown; his size and figure only could be determined; and it is said his height was 12 to 14 feet, and his other dimensions answerable to so great a height. Is it possible that the forests of the East should contain a creature of this prodigious bulk, which though obscurely, and but lately, known to us, was well known in the days of Job, and formed an object of comparison, and of poetical description, among Årabian writers? Is he, or was he, extant in Persia, for instance, so that the writer of the book of Job depicts one animal whose residence was to the west of him, the leviathan, or crocodile, and another whose residence was east of him? the arnee. I have thought it was but fair to mention the possibility of this reference, before I proceed to consider some hints in the foregoing extracts; and to submit the arguments on the other side of this inquiry. I observe that the Arabian description of an antelope, or a deer, can never apply to the reem of Holy Writ but if the reem of the beeve kind was really known to the Arabian writers, how happens it, that all their descriptions of this terrific animal terminate in a gazelle, or a stag? Observe also, that though the sea unicorn cannot possibly be the reem of Job, yet it does not follow, that the land unicorn is a fable: we have in Barrow's Travels in Southern Africa, p. 313. a partial delinea |