THE MOTH. 



THE GNAT. 



THIS insect is mentioned only in Matt, xxiii. 24, and Bochart has 

 labored to prove that the Greek word means a kind of insect which 

 is bred in the lees of wine, and that ever after lives on acids, avoid- 

 ing sweets. It may be so, but several writers have stated, that in 

 the East the gnats are extremely numerous, and are very apt to fall 

 into wine, if it be not carefully covered. This may help us to un- 

 derstand the passage to which we have referred, where there is an 

 evident opposition between the gnat which the hypocritical pro- 

 fessors of purity are said to strain out, and the camel which they 

 are said to swallow. See page 53. 



THE MOTH, 



Tflts insect is mentioned in several passages of Scripture, either 

 as destroying by its ravages, or as affording a striking emblem of 

 the fleetness and frailty of human life. The comparison of man, on 

 account of his littleness and the shortness of his life, to a worm, or 

 an insect, is common in the sacred writings ; but in no other part of 

 them, nor in any other writings whatsoever, is the metaphor so ex- 

 tensively applied, or so admirably supported, as in the Book of Job. 

 Thus, in the address of Eliphaz to the venerable patriarch : ' What, 

 then, are the dwellers in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the 

 dust ? They are crushed before the moth.' chap. iv. 19. To the 

 same purpose the Psalmist expresses himself, when deprecating the 

 judgments of God : ' Remove thy stroke away from me : I am 

 consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes 

 dest correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume 

 ;away like a moth : surely every man is vanity, Selah,' Ps. xxxix. 

 110, 11. 



The idea in both these passages seems to be, that as the moth 

 crumbles into dust under the slightest pressure, or the gentlest touch ; 

 so man dissolves with equal ease, and vanishes into darkness, un- 

 der the finger of the Almighty, 



How sublime is the sentiment, and how expressive the language, 

 in the following passages : they need no comment : 



Behold, the Lord God will help me ; 

 Who i he that shall condemn me J 

 I,o, they shall all wax old as a garment ; 

 The moth shall eat thtn up. Isa. 1. 9. 



18* 



