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] 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).