As'nah (Heb. Asnah', f!2DX, peril, hateful, or thor?i, otherwise store-house ; Sept. 'Aaevd), the head of one of the families of the Nethinim that returned from the Babylonian captivity with Zerubbabel (Ezra ii, 50). B.C. ante 536.
Asnap'per (Chald. Osnappar', ~iB3C)X; some MSS. "I230X, Asenappar' ', whence Sept. 'Ajaivatyap v. r. N«0«p; Vulg. Asenaphar), the name of an As- syrian king or satrap who is said to have planted col- onies (probably from some distant conquered terri- tory) in Samaria, or perhaps other parts of Palestine and Syria (Ezra iv, 10). On the supposition that a king of Assyria is meant, and by comparison with 2 Kings xvii, 24, many (with Grotius) identify him with Shalmaneser; others (as Rosenmuller, Alterth. I, ii, 109; Hengstenberg, Authent. Dan. p. 178) understand Esarhaddon (comp. Ezra iv, 2 ; so Michaelis ; but see on the contrary Herzfeld, Gesch. d. Yolks Israel, i, 473) ; while most of the Jewish interpreters assume Sennacherib to be meant. He was probably, how- ever, only a satrap of some of the Assyrian provinces (B.C. cir. 712), and the epithet applied to him in the passage in Ezra (Xl"1^! KSl1!, the great and the ex- cellent, i. e. most eminent [comp. koc'itigtoc, Luke i, 3] ; Auth. Vers. " the great and noble") is apparently the usual title of persons in that capacity, heimj; indeed perhaps the translation of the official title Osnapper itself (OX = Sanscrit osna, great ; "iQ = Sanscrit para, noble; see Luzath, Le Sanscrit/sme de la langue Assy- rienne, p. 38-40). Bohlen, on the other hand, com- pares Sanscrit Senapa, leader of an army ; according to which the name would become merely a designa- tion of an Assyrian general.
A'som (\m'i/i), one of the Israelites whose "sons" had taken foreign wives on the return from Babylon (1 Esdr. ix, 33) ; evidently the Hasiium (q. v.) of the true text (Ezra X, 33).
A'sor (Aawp), a plain in Galilee near the Sea of Gennesaret (1 Mace, xi, 67, according to the Vulg. and Syr. ; the common Greek has Kamop, Auth. Vers. "Nasor;" but the initial v has apparently been bor- rowed from the preceding irtSiov), probably Razor
ASP
473
ASPALATHUS
(Tl5jn, which is thus Grascized in the Sept.), in the tribe of Naphtali (comp. Joseph. Ant. xiii, 5, 7). See Hazor.
Asp CjflB, pe'tken, so called probably from extend- ing itself, Deut. xxxii, 33; Job xx, 14, 1G ; Isa. xi, 8; "adder," Psa. lviii, 4; xci, 13 ; obttiq, Rom. iii, 3), a venomous kind of serpent, perhaps correctly desig- nated by this rendering, since the Chald., Syr., and Arabic equivalents appear to denote some member of the Coluber family (see Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 1140). Bocbart (Ilieroz. iii, 156, ed. Lips.) incorrectlj- refers to the Syr. name for dragon (comp. his treatise De aspide surda ad Psa. lviii, 5, ibid. p. 161 sq:). Kitto (Pict. Bible, at Job xx, 14) compares the bceten of the Arabs, called by the Cyprians hifi (Kwfi), deaf, comp. Psa. lviii, 4). This reptile, which more exactly cor- responds in name to the Heb., is thus described by Forskal (Descr. Anim. p. 15) : " Spotted all over with black and white ; a foot long, and about twice as thick as one's thumb ; oviparous ; the bite instantly fatal, causing the body to swell." See Adder. The "asp" is often mentioned by ancient authors (see Smith's
Asp as Aijatliinkcmon, or tu- telary Spirit, at the en- trance of an ancient Egyp- tian Store-house.
The Asp (.Haje): 1, at rest;
Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v. Aspis), but in such vague terms (except that they agree in its extreme venom, whence it was selected by Cleopatra as the surest and speediest means of her suicide) that little can be posi- tively determined respecting it, if indeed several spe- cies of serpent are not thus designated. From the de- scription of Pliny, however (His/. Nat. viii, 35), nat- uralists have generally fixed upon the el-Eaje (<<r Nasher, described by Forskal, Anim. p. 14) of the Arabs (Vipcra Haje of Daudin) as representing the ancient asp. It is from three to five feet in length, of a dark green color, marked obliquely with bands of
brown, and closely allied to the celebrated cobra-de-ca- pello of India in its power of swelling the neck when ir- ritated, and of rising on its tail in striking its prey (see Penny Cyclopaedia, s. v.). It is often figured as a sa- cred symbol on the Egyp- tian monuments under the name Kneph (Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii, 105). See I Serpent.
Aspal'athus (dff7r«A«(?oc), a word which occurs | only in Ecclus. xxiv, 15, of the Apocrypha, where the substance which it indicates is enumerated with other spices and perfumes to which wisdom is compared. It was no doubt one of the drugs employed by the an- cients as a perfume and incense, as it is described by Dioscorides (i, 19), as well as enumerated by Theo- phrastus (ix, 7), and by both among aromatic sub- stances. It forms one of the ingredients of the cyj h:, or compound incense made use of by the Egyptian priests, as related both by Plutarch and Dioscorides. From the notices in the classical authors (comp. Theogn. 1103 ; Theocr. xxiv, 87 ; Plin. xii, 24, 52) we can only gather that it was a thorny shrub, whose bark, especially of the roots, yielded a fragrant oil. In the Arabian works on husbandry the plant is stated to \ have an acid taste, and to bear a purple flower, but no fruit (see Smith's Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v.). Lig- num Rhodium is sometimes considered to be one of the kinds of aspalathus described by Dioscorides, but \ this is a produce of the Canary Islands, and of the j plant called Convolvulus scoparius. By others as- palathus, which has been supposed to be the same thing as Syrian aloe, or that of Rhodes and of Candia, is thought to have been yielded by species of the genus which has been called Aspalathus, and especially by the species A. Creticns, which is now called Anthyllis Hermanniw; but there does not seem to be sufficient proof of this. Others again have held that aspalathus was a kind of agallochum [see Aloe], and Dr. Harris (sub. Lign. — aloe) seems to have thought that he got rid of a difficulty by suggesting that ahalim, which was probably agallochum, should be rendered Aspal- athus. Aral) authors, as Avicenna and Serapion, give Dar-shishan as the Arabic synonym of aspalathus. They quote some of their own countrymen as authori- ties respecting it, in addition to Galen and Dioscorides. Hence it would appear to have been a product of the East rather than of the "West, as for such they usually give only the Greek name or its translation, and quote only Greek authorities. Avicenna, in addition to his description, says that some think it may be the root of Indian nard. Hence it may justty be inferred that Dar-shishan, which the Arabians thought to be aspalathus, must have come to them from India, or they would not have hazarded this supposition. In India the name Dar-shishan is applied to the bark of a tree which is called haiphul or Tcyphul. This tree is a native of the Himalayan Mountains from Nepal to the Sutlej, and has been figured and described by Dr. Wallich, in his Tentamen Flora; Xepahnsis, p. 59, t. 45, by the name Myrica sapida, in consequence of its fruit, which is something like that of the arbutus, being edible. The leaves, on being rubbed, have a pleasantly aromatic though faint smell. The bark forms an article of commerce from the hills to the plains, being esteemed in the latter as a valuable stim- ulant medicine. It may be seen mentioned by the name ka-i-phul in Gladwin's translation of the Persian Ulfaz-i-Udwieh, No. 884, as a synonj'm of Dar-shee- j shan, which is described as an aromatic bark, while at No. 157 Dar-shishan is considered to be a synonym of ishtelayus, which seems to be a corruption of aspal- athus from the errors of transcribers in the diacritical I points. Kaiphul has, moreover, been long celebrated