and then grind them into meal and make cakes of them. The Israelites were allowed to eat the arbeh, i.e., according to Exo 10:13, Exo 10:19; Nah 3:17, etc., the flying migratory locust, gryllus migratorius, which still bears this name, according to Niebuhr, in Maskat and Bagdad, and is poetically designated in Psa 78:46; Psa 105:34, as חסיל, the devourer, and ילק, the eater-up; but Knobel is mistaken in supposing that these names are applied to certain species of the arbeh. סלעם, according to the Chaldee, deglutivit, absorpsit, is unquestionably a larger and peculiarly voracious species of locust. This is all that can be inferred from the rashon of the Targums and Talmud, whilst the ἀττάκης and attacus of the lxx and Vulg. are altogether unexplained. חרגּל: according to the Arabic, a galloping, i.e., a hopping, not a flying species of locust. This is supported by the Samaritan, also by the lxx and Vulg., ὀφιομάχης, ophiomachus. According to Hesychius and Suidas, it was a species of locust without wings, probably a very large kind; as it is stated in Mishnah, Shabb. vi. 10, that an egg of the chargol was sometimes suspended in the ear, as a remedy for earache. Among the different species of locusts in Mesopotamia, Niebuhr (Arab. p. 170) saw two of a very large size with springing feet, but without wings. חגב, a word of uncertain etymology, occurs in Num 13:33, where the spies are described as being like chagabim by the side of the inhabitants of the country, and in 2Ch 7:13, where the chagab devours the land. From these passages we may infer that it was a species of locust without wings, small but very numerous, probably the ἀττέλαβος, which is often mentioned along with the ἀκρίς, but as a distinct species, locustarum minima sine pennis (Plin. h. n. 29, c. 4, s. 29), or parva locusta modicis pennis reptans potius quam volitans semperque subsiliens (Jerome (on Nah 3:17).[1]
- ↑ In Deu 14:19 the edible kinds of locusts are passed over, because it was not the intention of Moses to repeat every particular of the earlier laws in these addresses. But when Knobel (on Lev. pp. 455 and 461) gives this explanation of the omission, that the eating of locusts is prohibited in Deuteronomy, and the Deuteronomist passes them over because in his more advanced age there was apparently no longer any necessity for the prohibition, this arbitrary interpretation is proved to be at variance with historical truth by the fact that locusts were eaten by John the Baptist, inasmuch as this proves at all events that a more advanced age had not given up the custom of eating locusts.
