V. Gaza.—Gaza is another Hebrew word which is once used in the Bible as the name of an insect particularly injurious to the vine, but it is afterwards frequently employed as the name of an insect which devastates all sorts of plants; with several other names of insects which have given occasion to a great number of dissertations, some of which extend to volumes. We have examined the modern names which appear to correspond to the ancient ones of the insects mentioned in the Bible in connexion with the word Gaza; and this examination may perhaps form the subject of another memoir. At present we shall confine our investigations to the word Gaza, because it is the only one among these names employed to denote an insect particularly injurious to the vine; and we shall notice the other names of insects which accompany the word Gaza, only so far as may be necessary for its interpretation. But such is the diversity of opinion among translators, that to obtain clear ideas it will be necessary to produce the passages in which this word occurs, giving our own translation of them, but retaining the Hebrew names.
The following passage in which Gaza is employed as the name of an insect destructive to the vine is in the prophet Amos, chap. iv. v. 9:
"I have smitten you with a scorching wind, and with mildew. Gaza has devoured your gardens, all your vines, and all your olive plants and fig-trees, and you have not returned to me, saith the Lord."
We find the word Gaza again in Joel, chap. ii. v. 25:
"I will restore you the fruits of the year, and all that you have lost by Arbeh, Jelek, Chazil and Gaza, that destroying multitude that I sent to you."
But there is a passage in Joel, chap. i. ver. 4, of still greater importance with regard to the translation of the word Gaza:
"That which the Gaza leaves, the Arbeh eats; that which the Arbeh leaves, the Jelek eats; and that which the Jelek leaves, the Chazil eats."
In all these passages the Seventy have translated Gaza by Kampé, and the Vulgate by Eruca, that is to say, a caterpillar. The pastors of Geneva and De Sacy have adopted this translation. It has also the approval of Bochart[1] and Michaelis. But the Chaldee Version applies Gaza to a sort of creeping locust, and the Talmud enumerates ten species of locusts mentioned in the Prophets alone, and among these is the Gaza.
The three other names of insects mentioned in the same verse of Joel, Arbeh, Jelek, and Chazil, are included in the ten species of locusts enumerated in the Talmud by the Hebrew doctors.
ticulated animals, in which this naturalist proves that tlie worms, otherwise called Annelida, ought to be placed at the head of this division, and before the Crustacea, the Arachnida, and Insects.
- ↑ Bocharti Hierozoicon, part ii. p. 483.
