occurs very frequently. This appears to be the general name in Scripture
of aquatic animals. Boothroyd, in the note upon Num. xi, 4, says, “I am
inclined to think that the word בשר, here rendered _flesh_, denotes only
the flesh of fish, as it certainly does in Lev. xi, 11; and indeed the
next verse seems to support this explication: ‘We remember how freely we
ate fish.’ It was then, particularly, the flesh of fish, for which they
longed, which was more relishing than either the beef or mutton of those
regions, which, unless when young, is dry and unpalatable. Of the great
abundance and deliciousness of the fish of Egypt, all authors, ancient
and modern, are agreed.” We have few Hebrew names, if any, for
particular fishes. Moses says in general, Lev. xi, 9–12, that all sorts
of river, lake, and sea fish, might be eaten, if they had scales and
fins; others were unclean. St. Barnabas, in his epistle, cites, as from
ancient authority, “You shall not eat of the lamprey, the many-feet,
[polypes,] nor the cuttle fish.” Though fish was the common food of the
Egyptians, yet we learn from Herodotus and Chæremon, as quoted by
Porphyry, that their priests abstained from fish of all sorts. Hence we
may see how distressing to the Egyptians was the infliction which turned
the waters of the river into blood, and occasioned the death of the
fish, Exod. vii, 18–21. Their sacred stream became so polluted as to be
unfit for drink, for bathing, and for other uses of water to which they
were superstitiously devoted, and themselves obliged to nauseate what
was the usual food of the common people, and held sacred by the priests,
Exod. ii, 5; vii, 15; viii, 20.
In Ezekiel xxix, 4, the king of Egypt is compared to the crocodile: “I
am against thee, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers
in Egypt. I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish in thy
rivers to stick to thy scales, and I will bring thee out of the midst of
thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick to thy scales.”
If the _remora_ is as troublesome to the crocodile as it is to some
other tenants of the water, it may here be referred to. Forskal mentions
the _echeneis neucrates_ [remora] at Gidda, there called _kaml el
kersh_, “the louse of the shark,” because it often adheres very strongly
to this fish; and Hasselquist says that it is found at Alexandria.
The term, ἰχθὺς, _a fish_, was, at an early period of the Christian era,
adopted as a symbolical word. It was formed from the initial letters of
the Greek words, Ἰησοῦς Χριϛὸς, Θεοῦ Ὑιὸς, Σωτὴρ, “Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, our Saviour.” From the use of symbolical terms, the transition
was easy to the adoption of symbolical representations, and it therefore
soon became common for the Christians to have the letters of the word
ιχθυς, or the figures of fishes, sculptured on their monuments for the
dead, struck on their medals, engraved on their rings and seals, and
even formed on the articles of domestic use.
FITCHES, or VETCHES, a kind of tare. There are two words in Hebrew which
our translators have rendered _fitches_, קצח and כסמת: the first occurs
only in Isaiah xxviii, 25, 27, and must be the name of some kind of
seed; but the interpreters differ much in explaining it. Jerom,
Maimonides, R. David Kimchi, and the rabbins understand it of the
_gith_; and rabbi Obdias de Bartenora expressly says that its barbarous
or vulgar name is ניילי. The _gith_ was called by the Greeks μελάνθιον,
and by the Latins _nigella_; and is thus described by Ballester: “It is
a plant commonly met with in gardens, and grows to a cubit in height,
and sometimes more, according to the richness of the soil. The leaves
are small like those of fennel, the flower blue, which disappearing, the
ovary shows itself on the top, like that of a poppy, furnished with
little horns, oblong, divided by membranes into several partitions, or
cells, in which are enclosed seeds of a very black colour, not unlike
those of the leek, but of a very fragrant smell.” And Ausonius observes,
that its pungency is equal to that of pepper:--
_Est inter fruges morsu piper æquiparens git._
Pliny says it is of use in bakehouses, _pistrinis_, and that it affords
a grateful seasoning to the bread. The Jewish rabbins also mention the
seeds among condiments, and mixed with bread. For this purpose it was
probably used in the time of Isaiah; since the inhabitants of those
countries, to this day, have a variety of rusks and biscuits, most of
which are strewed on the top with the seeds of sesamum, coriander, and
wild garden saffron.
The other word rendered _fitches_ in our translation of Ezek. iv, 9, is
כסמת; but in Exod. ix, 32, and Isaiah xxviii, 25, “rye.” In the latter
place the Septuagint has ξέα, and in the two former ὀλύρα; and the
Vulgate in Exodus, _far_, and in Isaiah and Ezekiel, _vicia_. Saadias,
likewise, took it to be something of the leguminous kind, גלנאן,
_cicircula_, (misprinted _circula_ in the Polyglott version,) or, “a
chickling.” Aquila has ζέα, and Theodotion, ὀλύρα. Onkelos and Targum
have כונהיא and Syriac, כונחא, which are supposed to be the _millet_, or
a species of it called _panicum_; Persian, כורכדם, the _spelt_; and this
seems to be the most probable meaning of the Hebrew word; at least it
has the greatest number of interpreters from Jerom to Celsius. There are
not, however, wanting, who think it was rye; among whom R. D. Kimchi,
followed by Luther, and our English translators: Dr. Geddes, too, has
retained it, though he says that he is inclined to think that the
_spelt_ is preferable.
Dr. Shaw thinks that this word may signify _rice_. Hasselquist, on the
contrary, affirms that rice was brought into cultivation in Egypt under
the Caliphs. This, however, may be doubted. One would think from the
intercourse of ancient Egypt with Babylon and with India, that this
country could not be ignorant of a grain so well suited to its climate.
FLAG, אחו, occurs Gen. xli, 2, 18; Job viii, 11; and סוף, _weeds_, Exod.
ii, 3, 5; Isa. xix, 6; John ii, 5. The word _achu_ in the first two
instances is translated “meadows,” and in the latter, “flag.” It
probably denotes the sedge, or long grass, which grows in the meadows of
the Nile, very grateful to the cattle. It is retained in the Septuagint
in Genesis, ἐν τῷ ἄχει; and is used by the son of Sirach, Ecclesiasticus
xl, 16, ἄχι and ἄχει; for the copies vary.
“We have no radix,” says the learned Chapelow, “for אחו, unless we
derive it, as Schultens does, from the Arabic _achi_, ‘to bind or join
together.’” Thus, Parkhurst defines it “a species of plant, sedge, or
reed, so called from its fitness for making ropes, or the like, to
connect or join things together; as the Latin _juncus_, a ‘bulrush,’ _a
jungendo_, from ‘joining,’ for the same reason;” and he supposes that it
is the plant, or reed, growing near the Nile, which Hasselquist
describes as having numerous narrow leaves, and growing about eleven
feet high, of the leaves of which the Egyptians make ropes.
The word סוף is called by Eben Ezra, “a reed growing on the borders of
the river.” Bochart, Fuller, Rivetus, Ludolphus, and Junius and
Tremellius, render it by _juncus_, _carex_, or _alga_; and Celsius
thinks it the _fucus_ or _alga_, “sea weed.” Dr. Geddes says there is
little doubt of its being the sedge called _sari_, which, as we learn
from Theophrastus and Pliny, grows on the marshy banks of the Nile, and
rises to the height of almost two cubits. This, indeed, agrees very well
with Exod. ii, 3, 5, and the thickets of arundinaceous plants, at some
small distances from the Red Sea, observed by Dr. Shaw; but the place in
Jonah seems to require some submarine plant.
FLAX, פשתה, Exod. ix, 31; Lev. xiii, 47, 48, 52, 59; Deut. xxii, 11;
Joshua ii, 6; Judg. xv, 14; Prov. xxxi, 13; Isaiah xix, 9; xlii, 3;
xliii, 17; Jer. xiii, 1; Ezek. xl, 3; xliv, 17, 18; Hosea ii, 5, 9;
λῖνον Matt. xii, 20; Rev. xv, 6; a plant very common, and too well known
to need a description. It is a vegetable upon which the industry of
mankind has been exercised with the greatest success and utility. On
passing a field of it, one is struck with astonishment when he considers
that this apparently insignificant plant may, by the labour and
ingenuity of man, be made to assume an entirely new form and appearance,
and to contribute to pleasure and health, by furnishing us with
agreeable and ornamental apparel. This word Mr. Parkhurst thinks is
derived from the verb פשט, _to strip_, because the substance which we
term _flax_ is properly the bark or fibrous part of the vegetable,
pilled or stripped off the stalks. From time immemorial Egypt was
celebrated for the production or manufacture of flax. Wrought into
garments, it constituted the principal dress of the inhabitants, and the
priests never put on any other kind of clothing. The fine linen of Egypt
is celebrated in all ancient authors, and its superior excellence
mentioned in the sacred Scriptures. The manufacture of flax is still
carried on in that country, and many writers take notice of it. Rabbi
Benjamin Tudela mentions the manufactory at Damiata; and Egmont and
Heyman describe the article as being of a beautiful colour, and so
finely spun that the threads are hardly discernible.
FLEA, פרעש, 1 Sam. xxiv, 14; xxvi, 20. The LXX, and another Greek
version in the _Hexapla_, render it ψύλλον, and the Vulgate _pulex_. It
seems, says Mr. Parkhurst, an evident derivative from פרע _free_, and
רעש _to leap_, _bound_, or _skip_, on account of its agility in leaping
or skipping. The flea is a little wingless insect, equally contemptible
and troublesome. It is thus described by an Arabian author: “A black,
nimble, extenuated, hunch-backed animal, which being sensible when any
one looks on it, jumps incessantly, now on one side, now on the other,
till it gets out of sight.” David likens himself to this insect;
importing that while it would cost Saul much pains to catch him, he
would obtain but very little advantage from it.
FLESH, a term of very ambiguous import in the Scriptures. An eminent
critic has enumerated no less than six different meanings which it bears
in the sacred writings, and for which, he affirms, there will not be
found a single authority in any profane writer: 1. It sometimes denotes
the whole body considered as animated, as in Matt. xxvi, 41, “The spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 2. It sometimes means a human being,
as in Luke iii, 6, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” 3.
Sometimes a person’s kindred collectively considered, as in Rom. xi, 14,
“If by any means I may provoke them which are my flesh.” 4. Sometimes
any thing of an external or ceremonial nature, as opposed to that which
is internal and moral, as in Gal. iii, 3, “Having begun in the Spirit,
are ye now made perfect in the flesh?” 5. The sensitive part of our
nature, or that which is the seat of appetite, as in 2 Cor. vii, 1, “Let
us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit;” where
there can be no doubt that the pollutions of the flesh must be those of
the appetites, being opposed to the pollutions of the spirit, or those
of the passions. 6. It is employed to denote any principle of vice and
moral pravity of whatever kind. Thus among the works of the flesh, Gal.
v, 19–21, are numbered not only adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, drunkenness, and revellings, which all relate to
criminal indulgence of appetite, but idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, and
murders, which are manifestly vices of a different kind, and partake
more of the diabolical nature than of the beastly.
FLIES. The kinds of flies are exceedingly numerous; some with two, and
some with four, wings. They abound in warm and moist regions, as in
Egypt, Chaldea, Palestine, and in the middle regions of Africa; and
during the rainy seasons are very troublesome. In the Hebrew Scriptures,
or in the ancient versions, are seven kinds of insects, which Bochart
classes among _muscæ_, or flies. These are, 1. ערב, Exod. viii, 20; Psa.
lxxviii, 45; cv, 31, which those interpreters who, by residing on the
spot, have had the best means of identifying, have rendered the
_dog-fly_, κυνόμυια, and it is supposed to be the same which in
Abyssinia is called the _zimb_. 2. זבוב, 2 Kings i, 2, 3, 6, 16; Eccles.
x, 1; Isa. vii, 18. Whether this denotes absolutely a distinct species
of fly, or swarms of all sorts, may be difficult to determine. 3. ידברה
Judges xiv, 18; Psa. cxviii, 12, rendered _bee_. 4. צרעה, σφὴξ, Exodus
xxiii, 28; Joshua xxiv, 12; Deut. vii, 20, _hornet_. 5. סרבים, οἶϛρος,
Ezek. ii, 6; Hosea iv, 16. 6. כק, κώνωψ, Matt. xxiii, 24, _the gnat_. 7.
כנים, σκνίφες, Exod. viii, 16; Psa. cv, 31, _lice_.
2. M. Sonnini, speaking of Egypt, says, “Of insects there the most
troublesome are the flies. Both man and beast are cruelly tormented with
them. No idea can be formed of their obstinate rapacity when they wish
to fix upon some part of the body. It is in vain to drive them away;
they return again in the self-same moment; and their perseverance
wearies out the most patient spirit. They like to fasten themselves in
preference on the corners of the eye, and on the edge of the eyelid;
tender parts, toward which a gentle moisture attracts them.” The
Egyptians paid a superstitious worship to several sorts of flies and
insects. If, then, such was the superstitious homage of this people,
nothing could be more determinate than the judgment brought upon them by
Moses. They were punished by the very things they revered; and though
they boasted of spells and charms, yet they could not ward off the evil.
3. “The word _zimb_,” says Bruce, “is Arabic, and signifies _the fly_ in
general.” The Chaldee paraphrase is content with calling it simply
_zebub_, which has the same general signification. The Ethiopic version
calls it _tsaltsalya_, which is the true name of this particular fly in
Geez. It is in size very little larger than a bee, of a thicker
proportion; and its wings, which are broader, are placed separate like
those of a fly. Its head is large; the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and
has at the end of it a strong pointed hair, of about a quarter of an
inch in length; the lower jaw has two of these hairs: and this pencil of
hairs, joined together, makes a resistance to the finger, nearly equal
to a strong bristle of a hog. Its legs are serrated on the inside, and
the whole covered with brown hair, or down. It has no sting, though it
appears to be of the bee kind. As soon as this winged assassin appears,
and its buzzing is heard, the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly
about the plain till they die, worn out with affright, fatigue, and
pain. The inhabitants of Melinda down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the
south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and
remove to the next sand in the beginning of the rainy season. This is
not a partial emigration; the inhabitants of all the countries, from the
mountains of Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile and
Astaboras, are, once in a year, obliged to change their abode, and seek
protection in the sands of Beja, till the danger of the insect is over.
The elephant and the rhinoceros, which by reason of their enormous bulk,
and the vast quantity of food and water they daily need, cannot shift to
desert and dry places, are obliged, in order to resist the zimb, to roll
themselves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like
armour. It was no trifling judgment, then, with which the prophet
threatened the refractory Israelites: “The Lord shall hiss for the fly
that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee
that is in the land of Assyria,” Isaiah vii, 18. If the prediction be
understood in the literal sense, it represents the _œstra_ or
_cincinellæ_, as the armies of Jehovah, summoned by him to battle
against his offending people; or, if it be taken metaphorically, which
is perhaps the proper way of expounding it, the prophet compares the
numerous and destructive armies of Babylon to the countless swarms of
these flies, whose distant hum is said to strike the quadrupeds with
consternation, and whose bite inflicts, on man and beast, a torment
almost insupportable. How intolerable a plague of flies can prove, is
evident from the fact, that whole districts have been laid waste by
them. Such was the fate of Myuns in Ionia, and of Alarnæ. The
inhabitants were forced to quit these cities, not being able to stand
against the flies and gnats with which they were pestered. Trajan was
obliged to raise the siege of a city in Arabia, before which he had sat
down, being driven away by the swarms of these insects. Hence different
people had deities whose office it was to defend them against flies.
Among these may be reckoned Baalzebub, the fly-god of Ekron: _Hercules
muscarum abactor_, “Hercules, the expeller of flies;” and hence Jupiter
had the titles of ἀπόμυιος, μυΐαγρος, μυϊόχορος, because he was supposed
to expel flies, and especially to clear his temples of these insects.
4. Solomon observes, “Dead flies cause the apothecary’s ointment to
stink,” Eccles. x, 1. “A fact well known,” says Scheuchzer; “wherefore
apothecaries take care to prevent flies from coming to their syrups and
other fermentable preparations. For in all insects there is an acrid
volatile salt, which, mixed with sweet or even alkaline substances,
excites them to a brisk intestine motion, disposes them to fermentation,
and to putrescence itself; by which the more volatile principles fly
off, leaving the grosser behind: at the same time, the taste and odour
are changed, the agreeable to fetid, the sweet to insipid.” This verse
is an illustration, by a very appropriate similitude, of the concluding
assertion in the preceding chapter, that “one sinner destroyeth much
good,” as one dead fly spoils a whole vessel of precious ointment,
which, in eastern countries, was considered as very valuable, 2 Kings
xx, 13. The application of this proverbial expression to a person’s good
name, which is elsewhere compared to sweet ointment, Eccles. vii, 1;
Cant. i, 3, is remarkably significant. As a fly, though a diminutive
creature, can taint and corrupt much precious perfume; so a small
mixture of folly and indiscretion will tarnish the reputation of one
who, in other respects, is very wise and honourable; and so much the
more, because of the malignity and ingratitude of mankind, who are
disposed rather to censure one error, than to commend many excellencies,
and from whose minds one small miscarriage is sufficient to blot out the
memory of all other deserts. It concerns us, therefore, to conduct
ourselves unblamably, that we may not by the least oversight or folly
blemish our profession, or cause it to be offensive to others.
FLOCK. See SHEPHERD.
FLOOR, for threshing corn, or threshing floor, is frequently mentioned
in Scripture. This was a place in the open air, in which corn was
threshed, by means of a cart or sledge, or some other instrument drawn
by oxen. The threshing floors among the Jews were only, as they are to
this day in the east, round level plats of ground in the open air, where
the corn was trodden out by oxen. Thus Gideon’s floor appears to have
been in the open air, Judges vi, 37; and also that of Araunah the
Jebusite, 2 Sam. xxiv, otherwise it would not have been a proper place
for erecting an altar, and offering sacrifices. In Hosea xiii, 3, we
read of the chaff which is driven by the whirlwind from the floor. This
circumstance of the threshing floor’s being exposed to the agitation of
the wind seems to be the principal reason of its Hebrew name. It
appears, therefore, that a threshing floor, which is rendered in our
textual translation, “a void place,” might well be _near_ the entrance
of the gate of Samaria, and a proper situation in which the kings of
Israel and Judah might hear the prophets, 1 Kings xxii, 10; 2 Chron.
xviii, 9. An instrument sometimes used in Palestine and the east, to
force the corn out of the ear, and bruise the straw, was a heavy kind of
sledge made of thick boards, and furnished beneath with teeth of stone
or iron, Isa. xli, 15. The sheaves being laid in order, the sledge was
drawn over the straw by oxen, and at the same time threshed out the
corn, and cut or broke the straw into a kind of chaff. An instrument in
the east is still used for the same purpose. This sledge is alluded to
in 2 Sam. xii, 31; Isa. xxviii, 27; xli, 15; Amos i, 3. Dr. Lowth, in
his notes on Isaiah xxviii, 27, 28, observes, that four methods of
threshing are mentioned in this passage, by different instruments, the
flail, the drag, the wain, and the treading of the cattle. The staff, or
flail, was used for the _infirmiora semina_, the grain that was too
tender to be treated in the other methods. The drag consisted of a sort
of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stones or
iron; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn sheaves on the floor,
the driver sitting upon it. The wain was nearly similar to this
instrument, but had wheels with iron teeth, or edges like a saw. The
last method is well known from the law of Moses, which forbids the ox to
be muzzled when he treadeth out the corn. Niebuhr, in his Travels, gives
the following description of a machine which the people of Egypt use at
this day for threshing out their corn: “This machine,” says he, “is
called _nauridsj_. It has three rollers which turn on their axles; and
each of them is furnished with some irons round and flat. At the
beginning of June, Mr. Forskall and I several times saw, in the environs
of Dsjise, how corn was threshed in Egypt. Every peasant chose for
himself, in the open field, a smooth plat of ground from eighty to a
hundred paces in circumference. Hither was brought on camels or asses
the corn in sheaves, of which was formed a ring of six or eight feet
wide, and two high. Two oxen were made to draw over it again and again
the sledge, _traineau_, above mentioned; and this was done with the
greatest convenience to the driver; for he was seated in a chair fixed
on the sledge. Two such parcels or layers of corn are threshed out in a
day, and they move each of them as many as eight times, with a wooden
fork of five prongs, which they call _meddre_. Afterward they throw the
straw into the middle of the ring, where it forms a heap, which grows
bigger and bigger. When the first layer is threshed they replace the
straw in the ring, and thresh it as before. Thus the straw becomes every
time smaller, till at last it resembles chopped straw. After this, with
the fork just described, they cast the whole some yards from thence, and
against the wind; which driving back the straw, the corn and the ears
not threshed out fall apart from it, and make another heap. A man
collects the clods of dirt, and other impurities to which any corn
adheres, and throws them into a sieve. They afterward place in a ring
the heaps, in which a good many entire ears are still found, and drive
over them for four or five hours together ten couple of oxen joined two
and two, till by absolute trampling they have separated the grains,
which they throw into the air with a shovel to cleanse them.”
FO, or FUH, as the Chinese now call him, was an Indian prince, who was
made a god at thirty years of age, and died at seventy-five. His
worshippers form one of the three great sects of China, and it is said
to be far the most numerous. The worship of this idol, they pretend, was
observed a thousand years before the Christian era, and was introduced
from India into China within the first century after. Many temples are
reared to this deity, some of which are magnificent; and a number of
bonzes, or priests, are consecrated to his service. He is represented
shining in light, with his hands hid under his robes, to show that he
does all things invisibly. The doctors of this sect, like those of
Egypt, Greece, and India, teach a double doctrine; the one public, the
other private. According to the former, they say, all the good are
recompensed, and the wicked punished, in places destined for each. They
enjoin all works of charity; and forbid cheating, impurity, murder, and
even the taking of life from any creature whatever. For they believe
that the souls of their ancestors transmigrate into irrational
creatures; either into such as they liked best, or resembled most in
their behaviour; for which reason they never kill any such animals; but,
while they live, feed them well, and when they die bury them with
respect. As they build temples for Fuh, which are filled with images, so
also monasteries for his priests, providing for their maintenance, as
the most effectual means to partake of their prayers. These priests
pretend to know into what bodies the dead are transmigrated; and seldom
fail of representing their case to the surviving friends as miserable,
or uncomfortable; that they may extort money from them to procure for
the deceased a passage into a better state, or pray them out of
purgatory, which forms a part of their system.