supposes; for this animal lives in holes in the ground, is very shy, and does not frequent houses as is assumed to be the case with the animals mentioned here. צב is a kind of lizard, but whether the thav or dsabb, a harmless yellow lizard of 18 inches in length, which is described by Seetzen, iii. pp. 436ff., also by Hasselquist under the name of lacerta Aegyptia, or the waral, as Knobel supposes, a large land lizard reaching as much as four feet in length, which is also met with in Palestine (Robinson, ii. 160) and is called el worran by Seetzen, cannot be determined.
Verse 30
The early translators tell us nothing certain as to the three following names, and it is still undecided how they should be rendered. אנקה is translated μυγάλη by the lxx, i.e., shrew-mouse; but the oriental versions render it by various names for a lizard. Bochart supposes it to be a species of lizard with a sharp groaning voice, because אנק signifies to breathe deeply, or groan. Rosenmüller refers it to the lacerta Gecko, which is common in Egypt, and utters a peculiar cry resembling the croaking of frogs, especially in the night. Leyrer imagines it to denote the whole family of monitores; and Knobel, the large and powerful river lizard, the water-waral of the Arabs, called lacerta Nilotica in Hasselquist, pp. 361ff., though he has failed to observe, that Moses could hardly have supposed it possible that an animal four feet long, resembling a crocodile, could drop down dead into either pots or dishes. כּוח is not the chameleon (lxx), for this is called tinshemeth, but the chardaun (Arab.), a lizard which is found in old walls in Natolia, Syria, and Palestine, lacerta stellio, or lacerta coslordilos (Hasselquist, pp. 351-2). Knobel supposes it to be the frog, because coach seems to point to the crying or croaking of frogs, to which the Arabs apply the termkuk, the Greeks κοάξ, the Romans coaxare. But this is very improbable, and the frog would be quite out of place in the midst of simple lizards. לטאה, according to the ancient versions, is also a lizard. Leyrer supposes it to be the nocturnal, salamander-like family of beckons; Knobel, on the contrary, imagines it to be the tortoise, which creeps upon the earth (terrae adhaeret), because the Arabic verb signifies terrae adhaesit. This is very improbable, however. חמט (lxx), σαῦρα, Vulg. lacerta, probably the true lizard, or, as Leyrer conjectures, the anguis (Luth. Blindschleiche, blind-worm), or zygnis, which forms the link between lizards and
