. The land and the Book; or, Biblical illustrations drawn from the manners and customs, the scenes and scenery of the Holy Land . unimportant village, known mere-ly as a mazar^ sacred to religious purposes. This pool is crowded with buffaloes; and how oddly theylook, with nothing but the nose above water! Yes; and observe that their mouths are all turned upstream toward the fountain, and on a level with the surface,as if, like Jobs behemoth, they trust that they can draw upJordan into their mouths.^ Do you suppose that the buffalo is the behemoth of theBible? It is not easy to adjust Jobs magn
. The land and the Book; or, Biblical illustrations drawn from the manners and customs, the scenes and scenery of the Holy Land . unimportant village, known mere-ly as a mazar^ sacred to religious purposes. This pool is crowded with buffaloes; and how oddly theylook, with nothing but the nose above water! Yes; and observe that their mouths are all turned upstream toward the fountain, and on a level with the surface,as if, like Jobs behemoth, they trust that they can draw upJordan into their mouths.^ Do you suppose that the buffalo is the behemoth of theBible? It is not easy to adjust Jobs magnificent description inaU the details to the buffalo, yet I am incUned to believethat these black, hairless brutes are the modem, though belittled representative of that chief of the ways ofGod, who eateth straw like an ox, who lieth under the shadytrees in the covert of the reeds and fens. The shady treescover him with their shadow, the willows of the brook com-pass him about.* All these particulars are exact enough, Kings XV. 20. = 2 Kings xv. 29. » Job xl. 15-23. * Job xl. 15, 21, 23. BUFFALO—BEHEMOTH. 385. THE BUFFALO. and, indeed, apply to no other known animal that can be as-sociated with the Jordan. Large herds of buffaloes lie un-der the covert of the reeds and willows of the many brookswhich creep through this vast marsh, and we shall see themall day, as we ride round it, wallowing in the mire like gi-gantic swine. They are larger than other cattle of thisregion. Some of the bulls are indeed rough and monstrousfellows, with bones black, and hard like bars of the aid of a little Oriental hyperbole I can work upthese buffaloes into very tolerable behemoth. And in justi-fication of our version of Psalm 1. 10 may be cited the fact,that the general word for cattle in the dialect of this coun-try is behim or behaim, evidently from the same root as theHebrew behemoth. These circumstances and characteristics render it probablethat these very unpoetic an
Size: 1836px × 1360px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbible, bookyear1874
