861 



THE DOG OF SACEED HISTOET. 

 By E. Cambridge Phillips, F.L.S., &c. 



In the able and interesting article on "Dogs, Ancient and Modern," published 

 in The Zoologist, of October, 1884, the author, quoting Canon Tristram on the 

 subject, infers that the dog, being unclean to the Israelites, was regarded and 

 tolerated by them simply as a scavenger, and that domestic breeds were almost 

 unknown. 



I have thought it worth while, therefore, to offer the following observations, 

 in which I have been assisted, as regards the Hebrew, by one of our best Hebrew 

 scholars, the Rev. F. S. Stooke Vaughan of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field 

 Club, and I venture to hope that the remarks I have to make may cause the dog 

 of sacred history to be looked at in a very diEFerent light to that in which it is 

 usuallj' regarded. 



Exception may be taken to the statement (p. 399) that the earliest record of 

 the dog in sacred history is in connection with the sojourn of the children of 

 Israel in Egypt. In Gen. x., 9, as also Gen. xxv., 27, the word "hunter," 

 signifies " one who lays snares " ; but the Septuagint version, in Greek from the 

 Hebrew, renders the word Kwr/yos, i.e., "dog-leading." The inference is fairly 

 plain that dogs were led in slips and used for coursing various kinds of game, and 

 probably also for driving it into snares or nets; or possibly to follow up and 

 course animals wounded with the arrow, as in Gen. xxvii., 3, where Isaac says 

 to Esau, " Take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out 

 to the field and take (Hebrew, ' hunt ') me some venison," though it by no means 

 follows that this was the usual way of killing game at that time, the commands 

 of the patriarch, and the particular mention of the weapons to be employed, 

 seeming to indicate extreme haste. 



That there were shepherd dogs at a very early date is evidenced from 

 Job XXX., 1 (probably the most ancient book extant, supposed by many to be 

 even before the time of Abraham), in which the "dogs of my flock" are specially 

 mentioned. In Proverbs xxx., 31, and after the exodus of the children of Israel 

 from Egypt, occurs also that curious text, "A greyhound ; an he-goat also ; and 

 a king, against whom there is no rising up." Unfortunately the word "grey- 

 hound " is a mis-translation, the Hebrew being "one girt about the loins." Some 

 refer it to the horse. Both German editions of the Bible, however, render the 

 word, "dog," and as such the fact is worth recording. How the word "grey- 

 hound " has crept into our version I am unable to explain ; it being the only 

 passage in the Bible wherein a special breed of dog is mentioned. I allude to it, 

 however, in order to show that the text has not escaped my observation. 



The words in Isaiah Ivi,, 10, "They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark," 

 would seem to show that at that time dogs were used as a watch for houses, 



