Bible Animals

The scarlet or crimson of Scripture—Signification of the word Tolââth—The Coccus or Cochineal of Palestine compared with that of Mexico—Difference between the sexes—Mode of preparing the insect—The Arabic word Kermes.

We now come to another order of insects.

Just as the purple dye was obtained from a mollusc, the scarcely less valuable crimson or scarlet was obtained from an insect. The Hebrew word tolââth is translated in the Authorized Version either as "crimson" or "scarlet," but its full signification is the Crimson-worm. This is an insect scientifically named Coccus ilicis on account of its food. It is closely allied to the well-known cochineal of Mexico, which gives a more brilliant dye, and has at the present day nearly superseded the native insect. It is, however, still employed as a dye in some parts of the country.

As its name imports, it feeds on the holm oak (Quercus coccifera), a tree which is very plentiful in Palestine, and attains a large size.

THE CRIMSON WORM.

"Though your sins be as red as crimson, they shall be white as snow."—Isa. i. 13.

Like the cochineal insect of Mexico, the female is very much larger than her mate, and it is only from her that the dye is procured. At the proper season of year the females are gathered off the trees and carefully dried, the mode of drying having some effect upon the quality of the dye. During the process of drying the insect alters greatly, both in colour and size, shrinking to less than half its original dimensions, and assuming a greyish brown hue instead of a deep red. When placed in water it soon gives out its colouring matter, and communicates to the water the rich colour with which we are familiar under the name of carmine, or crimson. This latter name, by the way, is only a corruption of the Arabic kermes, which is the name of the insect.

The reader will remember that this was one of the three sacred colours—scarlet, purple, and blue—used in the vestments of the priests and the hangings of the tabernacle, the white not taking rank as a colour.

The Coccus belongs to the Homoptera in common with the cicadæ, the lantern flies, the hoppers, and the aphides.

On page 623 (#x28_x_28_i10) the large females are shown on the prickly pear, and near them are the tiny males, some flying and some on the leaves.

LEPIDOPTERA.

THE CLOTHES MOTH

The Moth of Scripture evidently the Clothes Moth—The Sâs and the 'Ash—Similitude between the Hebrew sâs and the Greek sês—Moths and garments—Accumulation of clothes in the East—Various uses of the hoarded robes—The Moths, the rust, and the thief.

Only one Lepidopterous insect is mentioned by name in the Scriptures. This is the Moth, by which we must always understand some species of Clothes Moth—in fact, one of the Tineidæ, which are as plentiful and destructive in Palestine as in this country.

Two words are used in the Old Testament to express the Moth, one of which, sâs, only occurs once, and then in connexion with the other word 'ash. The resemblance of the Hebrew sâs and the Greek sês is to be noted, both of them denominating the same insect. See Is. li. 8: "For the moth ('ash) shall eat them up like garment, and the worm (sâs) shall eat them like wool." Buxtorf translates sâs as tinea, blatta.

Several references are made to the Moth in the Scriptures, and nearly all have reference to its destructive habits. The solitary exceptions occur in the Book of Job, "Behold, He put no trust in His servants; and His angels He charged with folly: how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?" (Ch. iv. 18, 19.) A similar allusion to the Moth is made in the same book: "He buildeth his house as a moth, and as a booth that the keeper maketh" (xxvii. 18).

The Moth is mentioned in one of the penitential passages of the Psalms: "When Thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity" (Ps. xxxix. 11).

The prophets also make use of the same image. "Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them" (Isa. l. 9). The image is repeated in the next chapter (ver. 8), in which the 'Ash and the Sâs are both mentioned. Hosea employs the word as a metaphor expressive of gradual destruction: "Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness" (v. 12).

In the New Testament reference is made several times to the Moth. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" (Matt. vi. 19). St. James, in a kind of commentary on this passage, writes as follows: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

"Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.

"Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days." (v. 1-3.)

Even to ourselves these passages are significant enough, but to the Jews and the inhabitants of Palestine they possessed a force which we can hardly realize in this country. In the East large stores of clothing are kept by the wealthy, not only for their own use, but as presents to others. At a marriage feast, for example, the host presents each of the guests with a wedding garment. Clothes are also given as marks of favour, and a present of "changes of raiment," i.e. suits of clothing, is one of the most common gifts. As at the present day, there was anciently no greater mark of favour than for the giver to present the very robe which he was wearing, and when that robe happened to be an official one, the gift included the rank which it symbolized. Thus Joseph was invested with royal robes, as well as with the royal ring (Gen. xli. 42). Mordecai was clothed in the king's robes: "Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head.

"And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour." (Esther vi. 8, 9.)

The loose clothing of the East requires no fitting, as is the case with the tight garments of the West; any garment fits any man: so that the powerful and wealthy could lay up great stores of clothing, knowing that they would fit any person to whom they were given. An allusion to this practice of keeping great stores of clothing is made in Job xxvii. 26: "Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay;

"He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver."

So large was the supply of clothing in a wealthy man's house, that special chambers were set apart for it, and a special officer, called the "keeper of the garments" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 22), was appointed to take charge of them.

Thus, when a man was said to have clothing, the expression was a synonym for wealth and power. See Isa. iii. 6: "When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler."

The reader will now see how forcible was the image of the Moth and the garments, that is used so freely in the Scriptures. The Moth would not meddle with garments actually in use, so that a poor man would not be troubled with it. Only those who were rich enough to keep stores of clothing in their houses need fear the Moth, which would be as destructive to that portion of their wealth represented by their clothes as the "rust,"—i.e. the Grain Moth (Tinea granella)—which consumed their stores, or the thief who came by night and stole their gold and silver.

THE SILKWORM MOTH

Various passages wherein Silk is mentioned—The virtuous woman and her household—Probability that the Hebrews were acquainted with Silk—Present cultivation of the Silkworm—The Silk-farms of the Lebanon—Signification of the word Meshi—Silkworms and thunder—Luis of Grenada's sermon—The Hebrew word Gâzam, and its signification—The Palmer-worm of Scripture.

In the Authorized Version there are several passages wherein silk is mentioned, but it is rather doubtful whether the translation be correct or not, except in one passage of the Revelation: "And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

"The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk." (xviii. 11, 12.)

In Prov. xxxi. 22 Solomon writes of the virtuous woman "that she maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple." The word which is here given as "silk" is translated in the Jewish Bible as "fine linen."

In the other two passages, however, in which the word occurs it is rendered as "silk:" "I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger's skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk" (Ezek. xvi. 10). See also verse 13 of the same chapter: "Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and broidered work."

That the Hebrews were acquainted with silk from very early times is nearly certain, but it is probable that until comparatively late years they only knew the manufactured material, and were ignorant of the source whence it was derived. As to the date at which silk was introduced into Palestine, nothing certain is known; but it is most likely that Solomon's fleets brought silk from India, together with the other valuables which are mentioned in the history of that monarch.

At the present day silk is largely cultivated, and the silk-farmers of the Lebanon are noted for the abundance of the crop which is annually produced. The greatest care is taken in rearing the worms. An excellent account of these farms is given by Mr. G. W. Chasseaud in his "Druses of the Lebanon:"—

"Proceeding onward, and protected from the fierce heat of the sun's rays by the pleasant shade of mountain pines, we were continually encountering horseloads of cocoons, the fruit of the industry of the Druse silk-rearer. The whole process, from hatching the silkworms' eggs till the moment that the worm becomes a cocoon, is one series of anxiety and labour to the peasant. The worms are so delicate that the smallest change of temperature exposes them to destruction, and the peasant can never confidently count upon reaping a harvest until the cocoon is fairly set."

After a long and interesting description of the multiplied and ceaseless labours of the silk-grower in providing food for the armies of caterpillars and sheltering them from the elements, the writer proceeds as follows:—

"The peasant is unwilling to permit of our remaining and watching operations. Traditional superstition has inculcated in him a dread of the evil eye. If we stop and admire the wisdom displayed by the worm, it will, in his opinion, be productive of evil results; either the cocoon will be badly formed, or the silk will be worthless. So, first clearing the place of all intruders, he puts a huge padlock on the door, and, locking the khlook (room in which the silkworms are kept), deposits the key in his zinnar, or waistband.

"Next week he will come and take out the cocoons, and, separating them from the briars, choose out a sufficiency for breeding purposes, and all the rest are handed over to the women of his family. These first of all disentangle the cocoon from the rich and fibrous web with which it is enveloped, and which constitutes an article of trade by itself. The cocoons are then either reeled off by the peasant himself or else sold to some of the silk factories of the neighbourhood, where they are immediately reeled off, or are suffocated in an oven, and afterwards, being well aired and dried, piled up in the magazines of the factory.

"Such is a brief account or history of these cocoons, of which we were continually encountering horseload after horseload.

"As you will perceive, unless suffering from a severe cold in the head, the odour arising from these cocoons is not the most agreeable; but this arises partly from the neglect and want of care of the peasants themselves, who, reeling off basketful after basketful of cocoons, suffer the dead insects within to be thrown about and accumulate round the house, where they putrefy and emit noxious vapours."

The Hebrew word meshi, which is the one that occurs in Ezek. XVI., is derived from a root which signifies "to draw out," probably in allusion to the delicacy of the fibre.

Although our limits will not permit the cultivation of the Silkworm to be described more fully, it may here be added that all silk-growers are full of superstition regarding the welfare of the caterpillars, and imagine that they are so sensitive that they will die of fear. The noise of a thunderclap is, in their estimation, fatal to Silkworms; and the breeders were therefore accustomed to beat drums within the hearing of the Silkworms, increasing the loudness of the sound, and imitating as nearly as possible the crash and roll of thunder, so that the caterpillars might be familiar with the sound if the thunderstorm should happen to break near them.

A quaint use of this superstition is made by Luis of Grenada in one of his discourses:—

Dominica IV. post Pent., Concio 1

"Sunt rursus alii, quorum pectora sic generis humani hostis obsedit, ut nullius divinæ vocis fulminibus perterreantur, vel parum animo commoveantur.

"Quâ autem ratione eorundem aures obstruat, proposito hoc exemplo indicabo.

"Bombyces, hoc est vermes illi qui serica fìla nectunt, ita tonitruum sonitu gravantur, ut interduin moriantur. Quo fit, ut qui eos nutriunt tympana frequenter pulsent, ut sonitui molliori assueti a graviori tonitrui sono non lædantur. Tales mihi multi sacrarum concionum auditores hâc ætate esse videntur, qui quotidianis concionibus audiendis sine ullo animi motu assueti, si quis concionator, a Deo actus, gravius aliquid et formidibilius intonet, non idem magis animo permoveantur; utpote qui negligenter audiendi consuetudine pene insensibiles ad verbi Dei tonitrua affecti sint."

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Sermon 1