MAP OF
PALESTINE.
Illustrating the
NEW TESTAMENT.
OWL. There are several varieties of this species, all too well known to need a particular description. They are nocturnal birds of prey, and have their eyes better adapted for discerning objects in the evening or twilight than in the glare of day. 1. כוס, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16; Psalm cii, 6, is in our version rendered the little owl.” Aquila, Theodotion, Jerom, Kimchi, and most of the older interpreters, are quoted to justify this rendering. Michaëlis, at some length, supports the opinion that it is the horned owl. Bochart, though with some hesitation, suspected it to be the onocrotalus, a kind of pelican, because the Hebrew name signifies cup, and the pelican is remarkable for a pouch or bag under the lower jaw; but there are good reasons for supposing that bird to be the קאת of the next verse. Dr. Geddes thinks this bird the cormorant; and as it begins the list of water fowl, and is mentioned always in the same contexts with קאת, confessedly a water bird, his opinion may be adopted. 2. קאת, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16; Isaiah xxxiv, 11. In the two first places our translators render this the great owl,” which is strangely placed after the little owl, and among water birds. Our translators,” says the author of Scripture Illustrated,” “seem to have thought the owl a convenient bird, as we have three owls in two verses.” Some critics think it means a species of night bird, because the word may be derived from נשף, which signifies the twilight, the time when owls fly about. But this interpretation, says Parkhurst, seems very forced; and since it is mentioned among water fowls, and the LXX. have, in the first and last of those texts, rendered it by ἴβις, the ibis, we are disposed to adopt it here, and think the evidence strengthened by this, that in a Coptic version of Lev. xi, 17, it is called ip or hip, which, with a Greek termination, would very easily make ιβις. 3. קפון, which occurs only in Isaiah xxxiv, 15, is in our version rendered the great owl.” 4. לילית, Isa. xxxiv, 14, in our version the screech owl.” The root signifies night; and as undoubtedly a bird frequenting dark places and ruins is referred to, we must admit some kind of owl.
A place of lonely desolation, where
The screeching tribe and pelicans abide,
And the dun ravens croak mid ruins drear,
And moaning owls from man the farthest hide.
OX, בקר, in Arabic bœkerre and bykar, the male of horned cattle of the beeve kind, at full age, when fit for the plough. Younger ones are called bullocks. Michaëlis, in his elaborate work on the laws of Moses, has proved that castration was never practised. The rural economy of the Israelites led them to value the ox as by far the most important of domestic animals, from the consideration of his great use in all the operations of farming. In the patriarchal ages, the ox constituted no inconsiderable portion of their wealth. Thus Abraham is said to be very rich in cattle, Gen. xxiv, 35. Men of every age and country have been much indebted to the labours of this animal. So early as in the days of Job, who was probably contemporary with Isaac, the oxen were ploughing, and the asses were feeding beside them,” when the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away. In times long posterior, when Elijah was commissioned to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, prophet in his stead, he found him ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, 1 Kings xix, 19. For many ages the hopes of oriental husbandmen depended entirely on their labours. This was so much the case in the time of Solomon, that he observes, in one of his proverbs, Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,” or rather empty; but much increase is by the strength of the ox,” Prov. xiv, 4. The ass, in the course of ages was compelled to bend his stubborn neck to the yoke, and share the labours of the ox; but still the preparation of the ground in the time of spring depended chiefly on the more powerful exertions of the latter. When this animal was employed in bringing home the produce of the harvest, he was regaled with a mixture of chaff, chopped straw, and various kinds of grain, moistened with acidulated water. But among the Jews, the ox was best fed when employed in treading out the corn; for the divine law, in many of whose precepts the benevolence of the Deity conspicuously shines, forbad to muzzle him, and, by consequence, to prevent him from eating what he would of the grain he was employed to separate from the husks. The ox was also compelled to the labour of dragging the cart or wagon. The number of oxen commonly yoked to one cart appears to have been two, Num. vii, 3, 7, 8; 1 Sam. vi, 7; 2 Sam. vi, 3, 6.
The wild ox, תאן, Deut. xiv, 5, is supposed to be the oryx of the Greeks, which is a species of large stag.
PADAN-ARAM, called also Sedan-Aram in Hosea; both names denoting Aram or Syria the fruitful, or cultivated, and apply to the northern part of Mesopotamia, in which Haran or Charran was situated. See [Mesopotamia].