HYENA (ht -6 ' na), (Heb. Isaw-boo'ah, speckled, Ecclus. xiii:18).
Excepting in Ecclesiasticus. just noted, the word does not occur in the English Bible, al though therc are several passages in the Hebrew canonical books, where tsawbooah, 'streaked' or 'variegated,' is assumed to designate the hyena. The most noted of these is Jer. xii :9, where thc words, errOatov 6alvns, 'the cave of the hyena,' modern commentators preferred to translate 'a speckled bird.' as it stands in our version. But Bochart and the continuator of Calmet vindicate what we take to be the true reading, oith tsaw booah, 'the striped rusher,' i. e., the hyena, turning round upon his lair—introduced after an allusion in the previous verse to the lion calling to the beasts of the field (other hyenas and jackals) to come and devour. This allusion, followed up, as it is, by a natural association of ideas, with a description of the pastor, feeder, or rattler con sumer or devourer of the vineyard, treading down and destroying the vines, renders the natural and poetical picture complete, for the hyena seeks burrows and caverns for a lair ; like thc dog it turns round to lie down; howls, and occasionally acts in concert ; is loathsome. savage, insatiable in appetite, offensive in smell; and will, in the season, like canines, devour grapes, as the writer has himself ascertained by actual experiment.
Tsawbooah, therefore, we consider proved to be, generically, the hyena. The striped species is one of threc or four—all, it seems, originally Afri can. and, by following armies and caravans, grad ually spread over Southern Asia to beyond the Ganges, though not as yet to the east of the Bra mapootra. It is now not uncommon in Asia Minor.
C. H. S.
HYMN (him), (Gr. G/Avor, hum'nos, a hymn). In the only places of the New Testament where this word occurs, it is connected with two others of very similar import. 'Speaking to yourselves in psalms (stiaXp.o1s), and hymns (rAvots), and spiritual s,n.cs (cacti's), singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord' (Eph. v:19; Col. iii:16).
It has been conjectured that, by 'psalms and hymns,' the poetical compositions of the Old Tes tament are chiefly to be understood, and that the epithet 'spiritual,' here applied to 'songs,' is in tended to mark those devout effusions which re sulted from the spiritual gifts granted to the prim itive church ; yet in t Cor. xiv :26 a production of the latter class is called 'a psalm.' Josephus, it may be remarked, uses the terms GAvot, hymns, and ctiont, SOII.c.f, in reference to the Psalms of David (Antig. Vii:I2, 3). Our information respecting the hymnology of the first Christians is extremely scanty: the most distinct notice we possess of it is that contained in Pliny_'s celebrated Epistle (Efi. x:97). (Scc POETRY, HEBREW.) The hymn which our Lord sang with his dis ciples at the I-ast Supper is generally supposed to have been the latter part of the Hallel, or series of psalms which were sung by the Jews on the night of the Passover, compiehending Ps. cxiii cxviii ; Ps. cxiii and cxiv being sung before, and the rest after, the Passover. J. E. R.