em certain that I he plague is specified, though in the one. it it were to lie in the land, it would fasten upon the population of besieged cities, and in the other, if then known, it would probably he alluded to as a ter- rible judgment in an enumeration of diseases. The notices in the prophets present the same difficulty; for they do noi seem to afford sufficiently positive evidence thai the plague was known in those times. With the prophets, as in the Pentateuch, we must suppose that ises threatened or prophesied as judgments must have been known, or at least called by the names used for those that were known. Two passages might seem to lie explicit. In Amos we read. " I have sent among you i he pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken your horses; ami I have made the stink of your camps to come up into your nostrils" (iv, 10). Here the ref- erence is perhaps to the death of the first-born, for the same phrase, "after the manner of Egypt," is used by [saiab i \. 24, 26), with a reference to the Exodus, and perhaps to the oppression preceding it; and an allusion to pasl history seems probable, as a comparison with the overthrow of the cities of the plain immediately follows (Amos iv. 1 1 i. The prophel Zechariah also speaks of h which i In- Egyptians, if refusing to serve mitten | xiv, L8) ; bul the name and the
n which appears to apply to this scourge seem i" show thai it cannol lie the plague (ver. 12). Heze- Idah'a disease has been though) to have been the plague, and it- fatal natun . as well ;is the mention of a boil, makes this uol improbable. <>n the other hand, there i- no mention ol a pestilence among his people al the time, unless we bo regard the sudden destruction of Sennacherib's army (2 Kings xx, 1 in. Seven epi- demics .n. ilc ,',,in i no,, accompaniments of dense crowd- ing in cities ami of famine; and we accordingly often
find them in. nil .1 n
xiv, 12; xxix. is; Matt,xxiv,7; Lukexxi,ll). Bul there is no better argument for believing thai "pi ii- lence" in these instances means the glandular plague, than ile i.i.i ..i n- being al presenl a prevalent epi- demic of the East Ii i- also remarkable thai the Mo- saic law. which contains such Btricl rule- for the seclu- sion of lepers, should have allowed a disease to pass
unnoticed, which is above all others the most deadly, and al the same time the most easily checked by sana- tory regulations of the same kind. Michaelis endeavors
to explain why the Law contained no ordinances about
the plague by arguing that, on account of the Budden
appearance and brief duration of i he disease, no perma- nent enactments could have been efficient in moderating n- ravages, bul only Buch preventive measures as varied according to the ever-varying circumstances of the ori- gin and curse of ii- visitations (Mos. Recht, iv. 290). The destruction of Sennacherib's army | 2 Kin-- xix, 35) has also been ascribed to the plague. Bul not to in- sist on the circumstance that this awfully sudden anni- hilation of 185,000 men is do! ascribed to any disease, hut to the agency of an angel (since such passagt - a- 2 Sam. xxiv, 15, 1G, weaken this objection, and even Jo- sephus understood the cause to be a pestilence, An/, x, 1, 5) — it is impossible that such a mortality could have been produced, in one night, by a disease which spread itself by contagion, like the Oriental plague; and the same remark applies, though in a less degree, to the three days' pestilence in the reign of ] >a\ id ('_' Sam. xxiv, 13). There does not seem, therefore, to he any distinct notice of the plague in the Bible, and it is most probable that this can he accounted for by supposing either that no pestilence of antiquity in the East was as marked in character as the modern plague, or that the latter dis- ease then frequently broke out there as an epidemic in crowded cities, instead of following a regular course. See Diskask.
The disease now called the plague, which has ravaged Egypt and neighboring countries in modern times, is supposed to have prevailed there in former ages. Ma- udlin, the Egyptian historian, speaks of "a very ^ix-at plague" in the reign of Semempst s, the seventh king of the first dynasty, B.C. cir. 'lllb. The difficulty of deter- mining the character of the pestilences of ancient and mediaeval times, even when carefully described, warns us not to conclude that every such mention refers to the plague, especially as the cholera has, since its modern appearance, been almost as severe a scourge to Egypt as the more famous disease, which, indeed, as an epidemic seems there to have been succeeded by it. Moreover, if we admit, as we must, that there have been anciently pestilences very nearly resembling the modern plague, we iiiu-t -iill hesitate to pronounce any recorded pesti- lence to be of this class unless it be described with some distinguishing particulars. The plague in recent times has not extended far beyond the Turkish empire and the killed, mi of Persia. It has been asserted that Egypt is its cradle, but this does not seem to be corroborated