BASTARD By this word the Auth. Vers. renders the Hebrew pol luted, which occurs only in Deut. xxiii:2 and Zech. ix:6. But Michaelis, .lfos. Recht, ii, sec. t39, reads the word with a different punctuation, so as to make it a compound of two words, mamzcr, meaning stain, defect of a strani,cr, implying the stain that would be cast upon the nation by grant ing to such a stranger the citizen-right.
(1) Offspring of Prostitutes. Some under stand by it the offspring of prostitutes, but they forget that prostitutes were expressly forbidden to be tolerated by the law of Moses (Lev. xix: 29: Deut. xxiii ;17). The most probable con jecture is that which applies the term to the offspring of heathen prostitutes in the neighbor hood of Palestine; since no provision was made by Moses against their toleration (Potter, Ar cha•/. i. 354), and who were a sort of priestesses to the Syrian goddess Astarte (Comp. Num. xxv :1, sq.; Gesenius, Comment on Isaiah, ii. 339; Hos. iv :14 ; t Kings xiv :24 ; ; XXii :46, 47; Kings xxiii :7; lierodot. i. t99).
(2) Among the Jews. That there existed such bastard offspring among the Jews is proved by the history of Jephthah (Judg. xi :1-7), who on this account was expelled, and deprived of hispatrimony.
(3) In General. In general bastard is one born out of wedlock. Thus bastards, or mothers' children, in the family of God, are those who, in respect of external profession, have the church for their mother, hut were never savingly adopted and begotten of God (Ileb. xii :8).
BAT (bat), (Ileb. atarbfe', night bird), occurs in Lev. xi:t9.
(1) Designation. In Hebrew the word im plies flying in the dark ; which, taken in con nection with the sentence 'moreover the othelaph and every creeping thing that !firth is unclean unto you ; they shall not be eaten,' is so clear, that there cannot be a mistake respecting the order of animals meant ; though to modern zo ology neither the species, the genus, nor even the family is thereby manifested ; the injunction merely prohibits eating bats, and may likewise include some tribes of insects. At first sight,
animals so diminutive, lean, and repugnant to the senses, must appear scarcely to have required the legislator's attention, but the fact evidently shows that there were at the time men or tribes who ate animals classed with bats, a practice still in vogue in the great Australasian islands, where the frugivorous Ptcropi of the harpy or goblin family, by se'imen • denominated flyingdogs, and erroneously vampires, arc caught and eaten ; but where the insectivorous true bats, such as the genera common in Europe, are re jected. Sonic of the species of harpies arc of the bulk of a rat, with from three to four feet of expanse between the tips of the wings; they have a fierce dog-like head, and arc nearly all marked with a space of rufous hair from the forehead over the neck and along part of the back.
(2) Habits. They reside in the most dense foliage of large trees, whence they fly out at night and do considerable damage to the planta tions of fruit trees. it was to one or more species of this section of Cheiroptera that we think the Mosaic prohibition was chiefly di rected; and it is likewise to them that may be referred the foundation of the ancient legends concerning harpies, which, however much they may be distorted, have a basis of truth. Indeed, when we consider their voice. the faculty they have of feeding with their thumbs. their formida ble teeth, their habit of flying in the day during dark weather, and their willingness, though they are frugivorous, to devour not only insects, but also the blood and flesh of small animals, we may admit that originally they were more daring in the presence of man ; that their true characters are but moderately amplified by poetical fancy ; and that the Mosaic injunction was strikingly appropriate.
In the texts of Scripture, where allusion is made to caverns and dark places. true Vesper tilionidx, or insect-eating bats, similar to the European, are clearly designated.