MALLOWS. 299 



TARES. 



IT is not easy to decide, says Mr. Taylor, whether by the term 

 zizania in Matt. xiii. the Saviour intends indifferently all plants which 

 grow among grain, or some particular species. All we are certain 

 of from the circumstances of the parable is ? that it is a plant which 

 rises to the height of the corn. Parkhurst cites Mintert, who says, 

 it is a plant in appearance not unlike corn or wheat, having at first 

 the same kind of stalk, and the same viridity, but bringing forth no 

 fruit, at least none good.' He adds, from John Melchoir, zizanion 

 does not signify every weed, in general, which grows among corn, 

 but a particular species of weed known in Canaan, which was not 

 unlike wheat, but being put into ground, degenerated, and assumed 

 another nature and form. It bringeth forth leaves like those of 

 wheat or barley, yet rougher, with a long ear, made up of many lit- 

 tle ones, every particular whereof contatneth two or three grains 

 less than those of wheat ; scarcely any chaffy husk to cover them 

 with ; by reason whereof they are easily shaken about, and scattered 

 abroad. They grow in fields among wheat and barley. They spring 

 and flourish with the corn ; and in August the seed is ripe. 



It grows among corn. If the seeds remain mixed with the meal, 

 they render a man drunk by eating the bread. The reapers do not 

 separate the plant; but, after the threshing, they reject the seeds by 

 means of a fan or sieve. Nothing, says Mr. Taylor, can more clear- 

 ly elucidate the plant intended by our Lord, than this extract. It 

 grows among corn so in the parable. The reapers do not separate 

 the plants so in the parable : both grow together till harvest. Af- 

 ter the threshing they separate them in the parable they are gath- 

 ered from among the wheat, and separated by the hand, then gath- 

 ered into bundles. Their seeds, if any remain by accident, are 

 finally separated by winnowing ; which is, of course, a process pre- 

 paratory to being gathered the corn into the garner, or storehouse 

 the injurious plant into heaps for consumption by fire, as weeds 

 are consumed. 



MALLOWS. 



THE mallows of our translation, occurs only in Job xxx. 4, where 

 speaking of the former miserable condition of some of those per- 

 sons who now held him in derision, the patriarch says, ' Who cut 

 up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.' Refer- 

 ring the reader to the account of the juniper for some general remarks 

 on the passage, we shall here only add, after Parkhurst, that the 

 name shows the vegetable spoken of to be a root of a brackish or 

 saltish taste. 



