480 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



worshippers Ezekiel recognised Jaazaniah the son of 

 Shaphan that is of the rock badger (E.V. coney), which 

 is one of the unclean quadrupeds (Deut. xiv. 7 ; Lev. xi. 5), 

 and must therefore have been figured on the wall as his 

 particular stock-god and animal ancestor. It so happens 

 that the totem character of the shaphan, or, as the Arabs 

 call him, the wabr, is certified by a quite independent piece 

 of testimony. The Arabs of the Sinai peninsula to this 

 day refuse to eat the flesh of the wabr, whom they call 

 &quot;man s brother,&quot; and suppose to be a human being 

 transformed. Were a man to break this rule he could 

 never look on his father and mother again (Palmer, 

 Desert of the Exodus, i. p. 98). The close connection 

 which we have found to exist between Arab tribes and 

 southern Judah, and the identity of so many of the stock- 

 names among the two, give this fact a direct significance. 1 

 The connection between animal worship and forbidden 

 foods is a point which calls for special investigation. 

 In the case of the Hebrews it is well known that no one 

 has yet given a satisfactory theory of the distinction 

 between clean and unclean animals. But it can hardly 

 be doubted that there is a conscious antithesis to heathen 

 ceremonies in which unclean animals were sacrificed and 

 eaten as a religious act, as indeed is expressly affirmed 

 for the swine, the mouse, and the }&amp;gt;&&amp;gt; or unclean creatures 

 generally, in Isa. Ixvi. 17 ; Ixv. 4 ; Ixvi. 3. The mouse 

 has already come before us as a proper name both in Judah 

 and in Edom, and we have it as a stock-name in Arabia, 



1 There can be little doubt that the wabr was once an Arabic totem , 

 though the proverb &quot; more contemptible than a wabr &quot; (Fr. i. p. 493) 

 is not respectful. Wabra (the female rock-badger) occurs in the 

 mythical genealogies of the Qoda ites (Abulf. p. 182) and also as the 

 name of a place (Sprenger, p. 39). The people of Wabar are in the 

 mythical history (Tabari, i. 214, Ibn Athir ed. Bulaq, i. 31) sons of 

 Amim son of Lud, who dwelt in sandy Arabia and were destroyed by 

 God or transformed into one-legged monsters. In spite of the a in the 

 first syllable, this seems to be the plural of wabr and to be a variation 

 of the Bedawi legend. It is curious that the Arabs call the wabr the 

 sheep of the children of Israel. 



