[134] נֹקֵד, nôḳêd, is doubtless the same as the Arabic "naḳḳâd," or keeper of the "naḳad," defined by Freytag as a short-legged and deformed race of sheep in the Bahrein province of Arabia, from which comes the proverb "viler than a naḳad"; yet the wool is very fine. The king of Moab is called נוֹקֵד in 2 Kings iii. 4 (A.V. sheep-master). In vii. 14 Amos calls himself בּוֹקֵר, cattleman, which there is no reason to alter, as some do, to נֹוקֵד.
[135] בֹּולֵס, bôlês, probably from a root (found in Æthiopic) balas, a fig; hence one who had to do with figs, handled them, ripened them.
[136] The Egyptian sycomore, Ficus sycomorus, is not found in Syria above one thousand feet above the sea, while Tekoa is more than twice as high as that. Cf. 1 Kings x. 27, the sycomores that are in the vale or valley land, עֵמֶק; 1 Chron. xxvii. 28, the sycomores that are in the low plains. "The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as in the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of water, which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they absorb it freely even where drought seems to reign supreme" (Maspero on the Egyptian sycomore; The Dawn of Civilization, translated by McClure, p. 26). "Everywhere on the confines of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single sycamores flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.... They drink from water, which has infiltrated from the Nile, and whose existence is nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil" (ib., 121). Always and still reverenced by Moslem and Christian.
[137] So practically Oort (Th. Tjidsch., 1891, 121 ff.), when compelled to abandon his previous conclusion (ib., 1880, 122 ff.) that the Tekoa of Amos lay in Northern Israel.
[138] In 1891 we met the Rushaideh, who cultivate Engedi, encamped just below Tekoa. But at other parts of the borders between the hill-country of Judæa and the desert, and between Moab and the desert, we found round most of the herdsmen's central wells a few fig-trees or pomegranates, or even apricots occasionally.
[139] Luke i. 80.
[140] Mark i. 18.
[141] v. 5; viii. 14.
[143] Prov. xxxi. 24.