It appears that the horse was derived from High Asia, and was not indigenous in Arabia, Syria, or Egypt (Jardine's Nciiiiralisfs Library, yo\. xii), where his con- geners the zebra, quagga, and ass are still found in primitive freedom, although the horse is found in all parts of the world— free, it is true, but only as a wild de- scendant of a once domesticated stock. (See Schlieben, Die Pferde des Alterthums, Neuwied. 1867; Abd el- Kader, Horses of the Desert, trans, by Daumas, London, 1863.) All the great original varieties or races of horses ■were then known in Western Asia, and the Hebrew prophets themselves have not unfrequcntly distinguish- ed the nations they had in view by means of the pre- dominant colors of their horses, and that more correctly than commentators have surmised. Taking Bochart's application {Hiei-nz. i, 31 sq.) of the Hebrew names, the batj race, CinX, adorn, emphatically belonged to Egypt and Arabia Febx ; the u-hite, n"^:hb, lebonim, to the re- gions above the Euxine Sea, Asia Jlinor, and northern High Asia; the dun, or cream-colored, C'^|T>'lb, scruk- kim, to the Medes; the spotted jnebald, or skewbald/
I
HORSE-GATE
347
HORSE-LEECH
\
t
d'^'^'na, heruddim, to the Jlacedonians, the Parthians, and fater Tahtars; and the hlacl; D">'n'ind, shachorim, to the Romans; but the chestnut, 1'i"2X, umotz, does not belong to any known historical race (Zech. i, 8 ; vi, 2). See Ass ; Mule ; Dkomedauv. Bay or red horses oc- cur most frequently on Egyptian painted monuments, this being the primitive color of the Arabian stock, but white horses are also common, and, in a few instances, black— the last probably only to relieve the paler color of the one beside it in the picture. There is also, we understand, an instance of a spotted pair, tendhig to show that the valley of the Nile was originally suppUed with liorses from foreign sources and distinct regions, as, indeed, the tribute pictures further attest. The spotted, if not real, but painted horses, indicate the antiquity of a practice still in vogue ; for staining the hair of riding animals with spots of various colors, and dyeing their limbs and tails crimson, is a practice of common occur- rence in the East. These colors are typical, in some passages of Scripture, of various qualities, e. g. the white of victory, the black of defeat and calamity, the red of bloodshed, etc. (compare Rev. vi). — Kitto ; Smith. See Color.
Horse-Gate (Q'^CIStl ^T^, sha'ar kas-susim', Gate of the horses; Sept. ttuX)] 'iizTTuv or i7r7rfa)f,Vulg. porta equorum), a gate in the lirst or old wall of Jerusa- lem, at the west end of the bridge leading from Zion to the Temple (Neh. iii, 28 ; Jer. xxxi, 40), perhaps so call- ed as being that by which tlie " horses of the sun" (2 Kings xxiii, 11) were led by the idolaters into the sa- cred inclosure (2 Chron. xxiii, 15 ; comp.2 Kings xi, IG). (See Strong's Harmony of the Gos^jefe, Append, i, p. 1-4.) Barclay, however, thinks of a position near the Hippo- drome (which, on the contrarj^, was a later edifice), at the S.E. corner of tlie Temple wall {Citij of the Great King, p. 152). See Jeuusaleji.
Horse-leech (tiiDlbi', alukah' ,- Sept. y jSSsWa, Vulg. sunf/uisuga, A. V. some eds. as two words, " horse leech") occurs once only, viz. Pror. xxx, 15, " The horse- leech hath two daughters, crying. Give, give." Although the Hebrew word is translated leech in nearly all the versions, there has been much dispute whether that is its proper meaning. Against the received translation, it has been urged that, upon an examination of the con- text in which it occurs, the introduction of the leech seems strange ; that it is impossible to understand what is meant by its " two daughters," or three, as the Septu- agint, SjTiac, and Arabic versions assign to it ; and that, instead of the incessant craving apparently attributed to it, the leech drops off when filled. In order to evade these difiiculties, it has been attempted, but in vain, to connect the passage either with the preceding or subse- quent verse. It has also been attempted to give a dif- ferent sense to the Hebrew word. But as it occurs no- where besides in Scriptm-e, and as the root from which it would seem to be derived is never used as a verb, no assistance can be obtained from the Scriptures them- selves in this investigation. Recourse is therefore had to the Arabic. The following is the line of criticism pursued by the learned Bochart {Hierozoicon, ed. Rosen- mliller, iii, 785, etc.). The Arabic word for leech is ala- l-ah, which is derived from a verb signifying to hang or to adhere to. But the Hebrew word, alukah, he would derive from another Arabic root, alit/:, which means " fate, heavy misfortune, or impending calamity ;" and hence he infers that alukah properly means destiny, and particularly the necessity of dying which attaches to ev- ery man by the decree of God. He urges that it is not strange that offspring should be ascribed to this divine appointment, since, in Prov. xxvii, 1, offspring is attrib- uted to time, a day—'- Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.'' Now the Hebrews call events '' the children of time." We also speak of " the womb of time." He cites Prov. xxvii, 20, as a parallel passage : " Hell (sheol) and the grave are never full." Hence he