BEE
720
BEECHER
flowers; the amazing number and precision of their instincts, and the capability of modifying these by cir- cumstances, bo far as to raise a doubt whether they be not endowed with a portion, at least, of intelligence resembling that of man.
The bee is first mentioned in Dent, i, 44, where Mo- ses alludes to the irresistible vengeance with which bees pursue their enemies. A similar reference to their fury in swarms is contained in Psa. cxviii, 12. The powerlessness of man under the united attacks of these insects is well attested. Pliny relates that bees troublesome in some parts of Crete that the inhabitants were compelled to forsake their homes, and .Elian records that some places in Scythia were formerly inaccessible on account of the swarms of bees with which they were infested. Mr. Park {Travels, ii, 37) relates that at Doofroo, some of the people, being in search of hone}', unfortunately disturbed a swarm of bees, which came out in great numbers, attacked both nun and beasts, obliged them to fly in all directions, so that he feared an end had been put to his journey, and that one ass died the same night, and another the next morning. Even in England the stings of two exasperated hives have been known to kill a horse in a few minutes.
In Judg. xiv, 5-8, it is related that Samson, aided by supernatural strength, rent a young lion that war- red against him as he would have rent a kid, and that ' ' after a time. ' ' as he returned to take his wife, he turn- ed aside to see the carcass of the lion, "and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion." It has been hastily concluded that this narrative favors the mistaken notion of the ancients, possibly derived from misunderstanding this very ac- count, that bees might be engendered in the dead bod- ies of animals (Virgil, Georg. iv), and ancient authors are quoted to testify to the aversion of bees to flesh, unpleasant smells, and filthy places. But it may read- ily be perceived that it is not said that the bees were LikI in the body of the lion. Again, the frequently- recurring phrase "after a time," literally "after days." introduced into the text, proves that at least sufficient time had elapsed for all the flesh of the ani- mal to have been removed by birds and beasts of prey, ant-, etc. The Syriac version translates "the bony carcass." Bochart remarks that the Hebrew phrase sometimes signifies « whole year, and in this passage it would seem likely to have this meaning, because such was the length of time which usually elapsed between espousal and marriage (see ver. 7). He refers to Gen. iv. .'. : xxiv, 55 ; Lev. xxv, 'J'.), 30 ; Judg. xi, 4 ; comp. with ver. 10; 1 Sam. i, 3; comp. with ver. 7, 20; and 1 Sou. ii, 19; and 1 Sam. xxvii, 7. The circumstance that "/' if f/" was found in the carcass as well as bees shows that sufficient time had elapsed since their pos- session of it for all the flesh to be removed. Nor is such an abode for bees, probably in the skull or thon ,x, more unsuitable than a hollow in a rock, or in a tree, or in the ground, in which we know they often reside, or those clay nests which they build for themselves in Brazil. Nor i- the fact without parallel. Herodotus (v, Hi relates that a swarm of bees took up their the skull of one Silius, an ancient invader of Cyprus, which they tilled with honey-combs, after the inhabitants had suspended it over the gate of their imilar tory is told by Aldrovandus (Z)e In-
11 f -"in" bees that inhabited and built
their combs in -. human skeleton in a tomb in a church
:- i. 3, the production of honey
ind it- use as food, arc also mentioned, lice's
mu t have b( •n very common in Palestine to justify
""• 'i'1" given to it ..f a land flowing with milk and
honey. They ar- -till abundant there (Shaw. Trar.
i- : Oedinann, Samml. vi, 136), and mentioned
in the Talmud i ( h* Urn, wi, 7: Sabb. xxiv. 3
Philo, Qpp. ii, 638; Bochart, iii. 352. See Honey.
The reference to the bee in Isa, vii, IS, has been
misunderstood: "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the river of Egypt, end for the bee that is i:i the land of Assyria." Here the fly and the Lee are no doubt personifications of those in- veterate enemies of Israel, the Egyptians and Assyri- ans, whom the Lord threatened to excite against his disobedient people. But the hissing for them has been interpreted, even by modern writers of eminence, as involving " an allusion to the practice of calling out the bees from their hives, by a hissing or whistling sound, to their labor in the fields, and summoning them tn n (urn when the heavens begin to hirer, or the shad tics oft V( rang to fall" (Dr. Harris's Natural History of the Bible, London, 1825). No one has offered any proof of the existence of such a custom, and the idea will it- self seem sufficiently strange to all who are acquainted with the habits of bees. The true allusion is, no doubt, to the custom of the people of the East, and even of many parts of Europe, of calling the attention of any one in the street, etc., by a significant hiss, or rather hist, as Lowth translates the word both here and in Isa. v, 26, but which is generally done in this country by a short significant hem! or other exclama- tion. Hissing, or rather histing, is in use among us for setting a dog on an}' object. Hence the sense of the threatening is, I will direct the hostile attention of the Egyptians and Assyrians against you. — Kitto.