204 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



inimica. Nor is it to be doubted, that the Chaldee has the same 

 meaning. 



It will be remarked, says Mr. Taylor, that the miracles perform- 

 ed in Egypt, refer mostly, if not entirely, to the water and to the 

 air. Gnats would be a mixture of both, as they originate in the 

 water ; and after citing several writers who speak of the torment 

 occasioned by the sting of this insect, and of the great quantities in 

 which they are found in Egypt, and some parts of the East, he con- 

 cludes, by observing, ' The reader will judge from these representa- 

 tions whether the gnat does not bid fair to be the Hebrew cenim : 

 being winged, it would spread over a district or country with equal 

 ease as over a village or a city, and would be equally terrible to cat- 

 tle as to men. It seems, also, to precede the dog-fly or zimb, with 

 great propriety. 



Isaiah li. 6 is rendered, in our version, 'they shall die in like man- 

 ner; ' a sense which destroys the force and beauty of the prophet's 

 meaning. It may be better rendered, ' The earth shall wax old 

 like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die as a gnat.* 

 Certainly the ephemeral life of any species of gnats would, as 

 Geddes remarks, be a fitter image of the transitoriness of human 

 life, than the very uncertain duration of the life of a louse : besides 

 that, the figure would be less ignoble, and more congruous to tho 

 dignity of the subject. 



