174 bahok walckenaer on tWe insects 



■ V. Gaza. — Gaza is another Hebrew word which is once used in flie 

 Bible as the name of an insect particularly injurious to the vine, but it \% 

 afterwards frequently employed as the name of an insect which devas- 

 tates 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 apjiear 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 aii 

 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 import- 

 ance with regard to the translation of the word Gaza : 



" That M'hich the Gaza leaves, the Arbeh eats ; that which the Arheh 

 leaves, the Jelek eats ; and that which the Jelek leaves, the Chazil 

 eats." 



In all these passages the Seventy have translated Gaza by Kampe, 

 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 ap- 

 proval of Bochart* and Michaelis. But the Chaldee Version applies 

 Gaza to a sort of creeping locust, and the Talmud enumerates ten spe- 

 cies 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, 

 Arheh, Jelek, and Chazil, are included in the ten species of locusts enu- 

 merated 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. 

 • Bochnrti nierozoico7i, part ii. p. 483. 



