THE WILD ASS. 103 



'snuffed up the wind at their pleasure,' and wearied the prophets 

 of the Most High, till the armies of the Chaldeans subdued their 

 spirit, and scattered them abroad for a season. 



The ignorance and self-conceit of man is strongly asserted in 

 Job xi. 12, by a reference to this animal : ' Vain man would be 

 wise, though he be born a wild ass's colt ; ' or ass-colt ; a prover- 

 bial expression, denoting extreme perversity and ferocity, and one 

 repeatedly alluded to in the Old Testament. Thus, in Gen. xvi. 

 12, it is prophesied of Ishmael, that he should be a wild-ass man ; 

 rough, untaught, and libertine as a wild ass. So Hosea xiii. ]5: 

 'He (Ephraim) hath run wild amidst the braying monsters.' So 

 again, in ch. viii. 9, the very same character is given of Ephraim, 

 who is called * a solitary wild ass by himself,' or perhaps a solitary 

 wild ass of the desert; for the original will bear to be so rendered. 

 This proverbial expression has descended among the Arabians to 

 the present day, who still employ, the expressions * the ass of the 

 desert,' or, < the wild ass,' to describe an obstinate, indocile, and 

 contumacious person. In Job xxiv. 5, robbers and plunderers are 

 distinguished by the odious term of wild asses. The passage refers, 

 evidently, says Mr. Good, 'not to the proud and haughty tyrants 

 themselves, but to the oppressed and needy wretches, the Bed- 

 ouins and other plundering tribes, whom their extortion and vio- 

 lence had driven from society, and compelled in a body to seek for 

 subsistence by public robbery and pillage. In this sense the de- 

 scription is admirably forcible and characteristic.' So the son of 

 Sirach says (Ecclus. xiii. 19) : 'As the wild ass is the lion's prey in 

 the wilderness, so the rich eat up the poor.' 



