J. Hastings. FLOWERS. — Visitors to Palestine unite in their enthusiasm over the flowers. Everywhere they brighten the landscape with their brilliant colours, white, yellow, blue, violet, purple, maroon, crim- son, scarlet, brown, and even black. Fields, many acres in extent, are aglow with anemones, ranun- culi, poppies, chorisporas, silenes, clovers, milk vetches, cnamomiles, groundsels, crocuses, colchi- cums, irises, ixiolirions, gladioli, and tulips. The hedges are gay with their wealth of broom, roses, and brambles. The sandstone is clothed with pink and white rock - roses, and dainty little heaths. The hillsides are adorned with the lavish blossoms of the styrax, the redbud, the arbutus, and the myrtle, fiven the bleak shingle of alpine Lebanon, 10,000 ft. above the sea, is covered with large patches of Vicia canescens, Lab., and V. grcgana, Boiss. et Held., with their beautiful racemes of blue and white flowers. The table- land of Moab is gorgeous ^vith deep purple irises. Finally, the deserts have a rich and varied flora, numbering over 400 species, not found in other localities. Flowers are an emblem of beauty (Mt 6®'), butat the same time of frailty and inataoility (Job 14''', Ps 103", Is 28' 40^ Ja l'» etc.). The com- ing of flowers is a sign of spring (Ca 2'^). ' The flower of her age' is the bloom of a maiden's youth (1 Co 1^). G. E. Post.
FLOWERS in Lv IS"-" signifies the menstraal discharge ( Tji, RV ' impurity '). So Andrew, Bruns- wyke's Distyll- Waters, A iii. ' the same water . . . causeth women to have her flowers, named men- struum.' In the same sense Fr. fleurs ; but both are now obsolete.
FLUE-NET.— In Hab P'm 'flue-net' is given as an alternative for 'drag' of the text (Heb. nTr-c). The ioxmflu is found in French, and fluice for a fishing-net in Dutch. The flue (together ■with the ' trammel or hooped net whatsoever ') is for- bidden to river fishermen in early laws. The word is still in occasional use, as Three in Norway (1882), vi. 44, 'Seven boats . . . were out ■with a huge flue net.' Coverdale has ' yarne ' in this and the foil, verse, and is followed by the Geneva and Bishops' Bibles.
FLUTE.— See Music.
FLUX.— Ac 288 . the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux,' i.e. lit. a flow of blood (from^MxiM, ptcp. oifluere, to flow, through Ft.JIux; the spelling in 1611 is ' flixe ' [' bloody- flixe'], a spelling derived from the Fr. pronuncia- tion with ii — Bradley); Gr.Suo-fi-Ttp/a in TR, but edd. prefer the later form Jucrei'Wptoi' ; RV 'dysentery.' The AV tr" comes from Wyelif, who in ed. 1380 has ' Sothli it befel, the fadir of Puplius for to ligge trauelid with feueres and dissenterie, or flix,' thoi
uwln^'fix' without the adj., for it often stood alone in early Eng. as a synonym for dysentery. But tlie ed. of 1388 has ' Modi flux.' So in Mt 9-" Wyclif (1380) gives 'And loo! a womman tliat Bufi'ride the flix, or rennynge of blood {Gr. aliJ.oppooii<ra) twelve yeer, cam to byhynde and touohide the hemme of his clothe,' but ed. 1388 ' the blodi flux.' And so T. Fuller, Holy Warre (ed. 1640), p. 216, 'The siege was no sooner begun but the plague seised on the Christian armie : whereof thou.sands died ; amongst otliers, Tristram, King Lewis his sonne : And he himself of a flux followed after.' But p. 94, ' King Almerick liimself, wearied with whole volleys of miseries, ended his life of a bloudy flux.' See MEDICINE. J. HASTINGS.
FLY.— In 1 S 14'2 (readin" oyn with '^erti, for Kethlbh bTS) and 15'" (t:j.:m) AV gives (and KV re- tains) ' fly upon the spoU,' a more forcible render- ing tlian that of the previous versions ' turn to ' (the Bishops' have ' gate them to ' in 14^-). In 1 S 25'* ' flew upon ' ( AV ' railed on ') is used figuratively : o'V ' bird of prey ' comes from the same root.
In Lv ir-^-^ occurs the curious combination 'flying creeping thing' (TOC Hr')- As Driver points out (art. Creeping 'things, see also Com. on Dt 14'" where the phrase is ' every creeping thing that ttieth '), the Heb. word here used does not describe creeping but swarming creatures ; so that the tr" should be 'winged swarming things,' not as in KV ' winged creeping things,' the refer- ence being to insects like the locust.
FLY, FLIES. — Two Hebrew words are translated JJy : — 1. 30! zebhtibh, fivta, musca. This word is found only in two places (Ec 10', Is 7"). It corre- sponds to the Arab, dhnbdb, which is specially applied to house J/ies, but is also understood in the general sense of insects resembling them. It is used in Arab, as an emblem of weakness, ' he is more fraU than the fly ' ; and of contemptibleness, ' he is more contemptible to me than the buzzing of the fly.' ' The refuge of the fly ' is a proverb, applied to him who is protected by nis ignobleness. ' The father of the fly ' signifies a person with a stinking breath (of. Ec 10'). It is also said of such a person that he is ' more stinking in breath than the father of the fly.' Krora these qualities dhnbdb has come to signify evil or mischief. An unlucky man is ' a fly man.' The same expression is also used to denote demoniacal posse.ision, or insaniti/, or ignorance. More or fewer of these various significations in the Arab, may have obtained also in the Heb. word, which would account for the god of Ekron being called Baal-zebub (2 K V), 'the god of Jiies.' See Baal-Zehub.