SPIDER, עכביש, Job viii, 14; Isa. lix, 5. An insect well known, remarkable for the thread which it spins, with which it forms a web of curious texture, but so frail that it is exposed to be broken and destroyed by the slightest accident. To the slenderness of this filmy workmanship, Job compares the hope of the wicked. This, says Dr. Good, was “doubtless a proverbial allusion; and so exquisite, that it is impossible to conceive any figure that can more fully describe the utter vanity of the hopes and prosperity of the wicked.”
“Deceiving bliss! in bitter shame it ends,
His prop a cobweb, which an insect rends.”
So Isaiah says, “They weave the web of the spider; of their webs no garment shall be made; neither shall they cover themselves with their works.”
SPIKENARD, נרד. By this was meant a highly aromatic plant growing in the Indies, called “nardostachys,” by Dioscorides and Galen; from whence was made the very valuable extract or unguent, or favourite perfume, used at the ancient baths and feasts, unguentum nardinum, unguentum nardi spicatæ, [the perfume or unction of spikenard,] which it appears from a passage in Horace, was so valuable, that as much of it as could be contained in a small box of precious stone, was considered as a sort of equivalent for a large vessel of wine, and a handsome quota for a guest to contribute at an entertainment, according to the custom of antiquity:
Nardo vina merebere:
Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum.
“Bring you the odours, and a cask is thine.
Thy little box of ointment shall produce
A mighty cask.”