Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/212

 V. Gaza.—Saddle Locust:—Locusta ephippiger—Wingless Locust:—Locusta aptera.—Nymph Locust:—Locusta Puppa.—It will be recollected that from our examination of the name Gaza, employed by the prophets Amos and Joel, (p. 174,) we ascertained that it was used as the name of an insect eminently destructive, not only of the vine but of all kinds of plants; and that its ravages were succeeded by those of several species of locusts, which completed the destruction of all that this formidable insect had left undevoured. The word Gaza is rendered by caterpillar in the Septuagint and Vulgate, and by creeping, that is, apterous or wingless, locust in the Chaldee version. If it be remembered that in the days of Ptolemy the Jews of Egypt, to whom we owe the Greek translation of the Sacred Books, were very imperfectly acquainted with Hebrew, which was to them a dead language; that St. Jerome, whose translation has served as a basis for the Vulgate, was still more ignorant with regard to the designation of material objects, it will be found that the Chaldee version is on these accounts of higher authority than the two other versions: and if the works of Rosenmiiller and Oedmann, who have discussed this point of criticism with equal sagacity and erudition, be consulted, we shall be convinced, notwithstanding the opinion to the contrary of Bochart and Michaëlis, that the four different names employed by Amos and Joel as the names of insects, all denote locusts. The observations of the judicious traveller Shaw remove all doubt upon the subject. He informs us that in Africa, in the months of March and April, it frequently happens that the locusts driven by the south wind obscure the sun, and augment in density until the middle of May, and that after completing their ravages they remove to lay their eggs, and diminish in number. Then follow, after the interval of a few days, some smaller species, moving like the former in troops, which are in turn succeeded by one or two other species, which complete the devastation.

M. Oedmann thought that completely to vindicate the Chaldee text it was necessary to suppose the Gaza to be a locust without wings or elytra, not yet come to its full growth, which was mistaken by the Hebrews for a perfect insect and distinguished by a particular name. But the orientals were too well acquainted with locusts, which from all antiquity had supplied them with food, to allow of our imagining that the Hebrews could have committed such an error. Neither is it necessary to suppose it. We now know several species of creeping locusts which perfectly correspond to the creeping locust of the Chaldee version; a fact of which Oedmann appears to have been ignorant.