EGYPT’S INFLUENCE ON PALESTINE 401 
The introduction, however, of the historical facts cannot 
be branded as irrelevant. They demonstrate a constant 
association for over two millenniums with Egypt, and the 
deep influence of Egyptian civilisation and methods of life on 
Jewish policy. 
And yet, notwithstanding such intercourse and such 
cultural influence, we can nowhere in the literature of the 
Bible or of the Rabbis discern either a direct mention, or (as 
I hope to show) an implied allusion to the use of the Rod, 
which as a weapon both for market and sport from c. 2000 B.C. 
found favour in Egypt.! 
The same holds true of the Land of the Two Rivers; in 
no Assyrian sculpture, on no Assyrian seal, can we detect any 
delineation or any suggestion of angling, although instances 
of other kinds of fishing occur frequently.? 
In no book of the Old or of the New Testament can be 
found any direct mention of the Rod. In the Talmud—a 
vast work of teaching and discussion—the same silence prevails. 
The authoritative Talmudische Archdologie (by S. Krauss, 
Ig1o) gives us fishful places such as Lake Tiberias, and many 
points of ichthyic or piscatorial interest such as the hook, the 
line, salted fish, garum, etc., but contains no reference to the 
Rod.? Mr. Breslar, it is true, has recently girded up his 
loins to establish that in the Bible and the Talmud can be 
found at any rate the implied use of the Rod, but to a practical 
angler quite unconvincingly.4 
1 See Plates 370 and 371 in Wilkinson, and antea, p. 314. 
2 See antea, pp. 355-9. 
3 In Singer, Jewish Ency., V. p. 404. ‘‘ Fishing implements such as hook 
and line, sometimes secured on shore to need no further attention (Shab. 18a), 
and nets of various constructions ’’ are practically all that are given. 
4 After acknowledging (Notes and Queries, Dec. 2, 1916) that there is no 
mention in either Old or New Testament of a Rod, Mr. Breslar goes on, ‘“‘ Yet 
there are places such as Job xl. 31 (xli. 7) where the Hebrew words are trans- 
lated barbed irons and fish spears, and in Job xl. 26 (xli. 2) a thorn. A 
fishing-rod in the modern sense no one could reasonably demand, though 1 
opine that in agmoun (Isaiah lviii. 5), used in that sense in Job xl. 26, we have 
the nucleus of one.”” Mr. Breslar is evidently not aware or does not realise 
that fish spears, bidents, etc., were of the earliest weapons of fishing, long 
anterior to the Rod, and that these are the weapons referred to in Job. A 
reference to the Jewish Encyclopedia edited by Isidore Singer, would have 
shown him that zi/gal dagim in Job xli. 7 was in all probability a harpoon. 
Then, ‘‘ that this phrase (Kiet metzooda) or a similar one is not found in the 
Bible is merely an accidental omission like, I believe, that of the name of 
