This place afterwards gave its name to a toparchy (1 Mac 53, Jos. Ant. xii. viii. 1), the Idumsean Akrabatlene, which is not to be confused with another toparchy also called Akrabattene (Jos. BJ II. xii. 4, XX. 4, xxii. 2, in. iii. 5, iv. ix. 3, 9), from its chief city, Akrabatta — in the Onomasticon '\xpa.filiuM (cf. Pliny, UN V. 14), in the Chronicon Samaritanum Akrabith, in modern times Akrabeh— 9 Roman miles (8 English miles) east from Nablus, on the way to Jericho (Robinson, BRP ii. 280, iii. 296 f. ; Gu6rin, Samarie, ii. 3-5; SWP ii. 386, 389; PEFSt, 1876, p. 196). There is also near Damascus a village Akraba, which has given its name to the Akrabani, a canal of the Barada (Robinson, BRP iii. 447, 459).
Once only in the OT is there mention of scorpions in the proper sense, Dt 8'^, where they are named as one of the plagues of the desert of the wander- ings
In 1 K 1211- 1^ (and v.24 in LXX, a verse missing in MT) and 2 Ch IQii- 14 the word 'scorpion' occurs in the threats of King Rehoboam to his subjects. In this case scorpion may be simply a metaphor ; but it is also possible that under this name the Israelites were acquainted with some instrument of torture, either a whip consisting of several thongs loaded with knobs and hooks of metal, or a knotty stick armed with prominent nail heads. The Romans had such an instrument ; cf. Isidorus of Sevilla (Origines, 27) : ' Virga nodosa et aculeata.'
In Ezk 2^ scorpions symbolize (with briars and thorns) the vexations inflicted on the prophet by his companions. In Sir 2& the wicked woman is comj^ared with the scorpion ; in 39^** scorpions are numbered among the plagues God uses for chas- tising the ungodly. In 4 Mac 11^'' a man fastened in the torture-wheel is comjiared with a scorpion curving its body. Finally, in 1 Mac 6^^ a kind of machine of war for throwing projectiles is men- tioned under the (diminutive) name of (TKopirLdia (cf. Caesar, BG vii. 25).
3. NT references.— The Gospels mention scorpi- ons twice. (I) In Lk 1111-12 y.Q have three ques- tions concerning a father giving to his son a stone instead of a loaf, a serpent instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg. In the parallel passage (Mt 7®-^°) the third question is omitted (and in certain MSS and Versions of Luke the first ques- tion) ; hence it has been asserted that the saying of Jesus in its primitive form contained only two questions or perhaps one. But Jesus may have given more than one or two illustrations of His meaning, and we have to remember that bread, fish, and eggs were (and are still) the usual food of the inhabitants of Galilee. It has been frequently asked whether a scorpion bears such a likeness to an egg tliat a confusion between the two would be natural. But there is no question of likeness or
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confusion in this third case any more than in the case of the loaf and the stone, the fish and the serpent. It is not at all satisfactory to say -with Thomson {LB ii. 479), that ' old writers speak of a ■wliite scorpion ; and such a one, with its tail folded up . . . would not look unlike a small egg.'
The Greeks had a proverb resembling the text of the Gospels we are discussing — ccvt) Tipxy.t a-xopT.ov, and they used to in- terpret it b_\* saying : It] tjJv to. X^-P^ a.'ipouiJi.'^\M\ ocvrt tmv
^ikriomiy. Ttie existence of that proverb does not prove that Jesus necessarily associated in one single sentence the fish and the scorpion, and that uoy has to be corrected into i-^ov.
(2) Jesus says (Lk 10'^) that He has given His disciples ttji* i^ovaiav rod irarelv iirdviii 6(f>€0jv Kal (TKopirlwv. There seems to be in tliese words an allusion to Ps 9P^ where the LXX has (90'^) ^w' dcnrioa Kal pacrCKiffKov eTri^rjarj, whereas the MT has 'lion' and 'adder.' The Hebrew and Greek dis- agreeing, it is not impossible that in another trans- mission the scorpion has been substituted for one of the terms signifying serpent. It is certainly more natural to combine Lk 10^® with Ps 9V^, than with Dt 8" or with Ezk 2'' : both these texts are more similar ad verbum, not ad sensum,
Anotlier question is whether 'serpents and scor- pions' means here animals in the proper sense of the Avord (Mk 16^* and Ac 28^"^ might be quoted in support of this interpretation), or if it is a metaphor indicating the powers of evil. This alternative, liowever, does not correspond to the notions of the ancients, who did not, as we do, make a rigorous distinction between terrestrial and supra-terrestrial beings. Job. Weiss [Schriftcn des NT, ad loc.) says rightly that an excellent illustration of this passage of the Gospel is given in the famous verse of Luther's hymn : ' Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel war . . .' Moreover, we have to observe tliat Rev 9^- ^- ^" describe supernatural destructive beings similar, at least partially, to scorpions. This has to be brought into conjunction with an antique Babylonian conception. In the epic of Gilgamesh (Table IX. cols, ii.-iv.) we find the men- tion of two scorpion-men, one male and the other female, terrible giants, keepers of a door (cf. P. Jensen, 'Assyr.-Bab. My then und Epen ' in KIB vi. p. 205 ft"., and the same writer's Das Gilga- mesch-Eposin der Wcltliteratur,i. pp. 24-27, 79, 93). A. Jeremias [Izdubar-Nimrod, 1891, p. 66 f.) and F. X. Kugler ('Die Sternenfahrt des Gilgamesch,' in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, Ixvi., 1904, p. 441 ft".) have shown that those two celestial scorpions — re- produced in Babylonian sculptures — were the two zodiacal constellations Scorjiio and Sagittarius. We might also see, but less probably, in the second scorpion, the constellation of the Balance, which was called by the ancient Greeks Chdm, i.e. the ' Claws ' of the Scorpion (cf. Ideler, Sternnamen, pp. 174-178).