dpb, le'kesh (from dp^, to be late ripe), in the " af- ter-math" or " rowen" that springs up on meadows after being once mown ("latter growth," Amos vii, 1). See Me.vdow.
" Mown grass" is ^,gez, a moioing or mown mead- ow (I'sa. Ixxii, G ; Amos vii, 1). See Mowek.
Dry grass or self-made hay is called 'C'^T\, chash- ask\ "chaff" (Isa. v, 24 ; xxxiii, 11). See Stubble.
As in Matt, vi, 30, where a lily is called " the grass of the field," it is evident that, like the Latin gramen and the English "grass," the Hebrew equivalent had a very extensive range, and was not restricted to the "grasses" {GramineK) of the botanist. These are themselves a very ample order, ranging from diminu- tive plants like our own mouse-ear barley to the bam- boo which shoots up to a height of fifty or sixtj' feet in an Indian jungle, and including productions as vari- ous as the Arundo donax of Southern liurope, which furnishes the fisherman with his rod and the weaver with his "reed, "the cereals which supply to all man- kind the staff of life, and the sugar-cane which, on the table of the humblest artisan in Europe or America, places luxuries unknown to a Roman emperor. See Keed.
But when we speak of grass we are usually thinking of the narrow blades, so thickset and tender, which form the sward on a meadow, or the matchless turf on an English lawn. Or, if we are thinking of a separate plant, it is a hollow glossy stem rising up from the midst of these spirj' blades, and throwing out similar leaves from its joints, till it ends in blossoming spike- lets, loose or more compact, which, when the flowering time is over, show the taper corn-like seeds inclosed in the chaffy glumes, and which wc destine as food for the cattle, even as we reserve the fruit of the cereal grasses as food for ourselves. The fescues, darnels, and poas, which clothe the meadows and build up the hay-ricks at liome, are pigmies, however, when com- pared with the grass "which grows for the cattle" of other lands; with the "tussac,"for instance, whose enormous tufts form an inexhaustible supply to the herds both amphibious and terrestrial of the Falkland Isles, and the beautiful pampas-grass, under which the huntsman can ride and see high overhead its "plume of silvery feathers."
The imperfect enumeration which we possess of grasses native to Palestine is of less importance, as the scriptural allusions may very well be understood with- out Ijcing able to identify the species. The psalmist wishes (Psa. cxxix, C) that the haters of Zion may be " as the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it growcth up," or, as it should bo rendered, " before it is plucked up" (see Hengstenberg,\Valford, etc.) ; and Isaiah (xxxvii, 27) speaks of vanquished populations " as the grass of the field, as the grass on the house-tops, blasted before it be grown up." On the flat roofs at the present daj' any one may see grass whieli has sprung up in the rainy season, withered awaj' b\' the first weeks of sunshine. " Wh<jn I first came to reside in Jerusalem," saj's Dr. Timmson, "my house was connected with an ancient church, the roof of which was covered with a thick coat of grass. This being in the waj' of a man employed to repair my house, he actuall}' set fire to it and burned it oflT; and I have seen others do the same thing without the slightest hesitation. Nor is there any danger; ftu' it Would require a large cxpensrs for fuel SMfficicut to burn the present city of Jerusalem" {Land and Book,
ii, 574). Indeed nearer home we may often see grass and even oats springing up on the roof of a thatched cottage, and a goat peradventure niljbling the herbage before it is withered. The dew "distilling" on the grass, and the rain descending on the mown grass, or rather on the grass which has been close-browsed by the cattle, furnish the sacred poetrj' with a frequent and exquisite image (Deut. xxxii, 2 ; Psa. Ixxii, 6 ; Prov. xix, 12; Micah v, 7); and still more frequently does that emblem occur in which our fleeting genera- tions are compared to the grass "which in the morn- ing groweth up, and which in the evening is cut down and withereth" (Psa. xc, 6 ; xxxvii, 2 ; xcii, 7 ; cii, 11 ; ciii, 15 ; Isa. xl, 6 ; James i, 10 ; 1 Pet. i, 24). — Fair- bairn, s. v.
Grasshopper is the rendering in certain passages of the Auth. Vers, of three Heb. words : n3"lX, arheh' (Judg. vi, 5 ; vii, 12 ; Job xxxix, 20 ; Jer! xlvi, 20), a lociist (as elsewhere rendered), sometimes a particular species, the migratory kind (Lev. xi, 22 ; Joel i, 4) ; iT5, goh (Amos vii, 1 ; Nah. iii, 17), a locust in general ; nan, chagab' (Lev. xi, 22 ; Num. xiii, 33 ; Eccles. xii, 5 ; Isa. xi, 22), a locnst (2 Chron. vii, 13), winged and edible (Lev. xl, 22), and therefore evident!}' not a proper grasshopper. See Locust. In Numb, xiii, 33 ; Isa. xl, 22, this insect is used to express comparative insignificance. In Eccl. xii, 5 reference is probably made to that degree of weakness and infirmity in old age which makes the weight, or even the chirping of this in- sect, to be burden- some. For the cu- rious illustration of ^p this passage from ^ the fable of Titho- g nius, see Kitto's g Daily Bible Illust. g ad loc. See Old ^ Age. ^=_