274 On the Animals designated in the Scriptures by 



forest, as in Psalm civ. 20, 21, " Thou makest darkness, and it 

 is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep (tiremos). 

 The young lions do roar after their prey." Instead of creeping 

 thing, in the work of the sixth period, our translators would 

 have given a less dubious meaning of the word, and the true 

 sense, indeed, if they had made it moving or walking thing ; — ■ 

 for by creeping thing we generally understand the insect tribes. 

 For these, however, the Hebrews have a very different name 

 (sheretz), expressive of their power of rapid oviparous multipli- 

 cation, as in Levit. xi. 42, "Whatsoever doth multiply feet 

 among all creeping things? (hasheretz). The sheretz is ex- 

 pressly named among the beings created, not in the sixth, but 

 in the fifth period of creation in Genesis. 



It has been necessary to shew that no creatures but mamma- 

 lia were created in the sixth period, because Mr Thompson argues 

 that the Iguanodon, with which, as we have seen, he attempts to 

 identify the Behemoth, may have been created at the same time 

 with man; and, in support of his argument, adduces some con- 

 siderations from the nature of the strata in which the remains of 

 the Iguanodon are found, to shew that, at the time the reptile 

 existed, the earth may have been in a fit state for mans habita- 

 tion. It is unnecessary to argue respecting a mere probability of 

 this having been so, since, both from the history obviously al- 

 luded to by Job, and the discoveries of modern geology, we can 

 produce additional proofs that the Iguanodon was not made 

 with man. None of the saurian tribes are named in Genesis as 

 being made with man ; but they are expressly named, along 

 with the other ovipara, as being made in the fifth period of 

 creation. Our translators, following here also the Greek Sep- 

 tuagint, have rendered the terms expressing them great whales; 

 but erroneously. The original terms are hathaninim hagadolim ; 

 and, after our inquiry above into the use of the term Than or 

 Thanin, in the Scriptures, it must be clear to all, that the right 

 translation, in Gen. i. 21, instead of great whales^ would be 

 great reptiles. We may observe, in reference to the plural form 

 being employed in both the noun and adnoun, that by hathani- 

 nim hagadolim we must understand a plurality of species of 

 great reptiles, created in the fifth period ; and not one species, 

 which might consist of many individuals. Had the latter been 



