KETZACH (ket'sak), (Heb. rI4P, keh-tsakh.), written Kezach and Ketsah, occurs only in Is. xxviii:25, 27, and is translated filches, that is, vetches, the Authorized Version (1) Different Plants. It is no doubt from the difficulty of proving the precise meaning of ket "adz, that different plants have been assigned as its representative. But if we refer to the context, we learn some particulars whic'n at least restrict it to a certain group, namely, to such as are cultivated. Thus, verse 25, 'When he [the ploughman] hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the filches (kelzach)?' And again, verse 27, 'For the filches are not threshed with a thresh ing instrument, neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin; but filches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.' From which we learn that the grain called ketzach was easily separated from its capsule, and therefore beaten out with a stick. The Septuagint translates it p.eXavtitov, melanthium, the Vulgate git, and Tremellius melanthium, while the Arabic has shoanez. All these mean the same thing,name
ly, a very black-colored and aromatic seed, still cultivated and in daily employment as a condiment in the East.
(2) Nigella. Melanthium is universally rec ognized by botanists to be the Nigella. If we con sider that this appears to have been always one of the cultivated grains of the East, and compare the character of nigella with the passages in which ketzach is mentioned. we shall find that the for mer is applicable to them all. The fruit is com posed of five or six capsules, which are com pressed, oblong, pointed: sometimes said to be hornlike, united below, and divided into several cells, and enclosing numerous, angular, scabrous. black-colored seeds. From the nature of the capsules, it is evident, that when they are ripe, the seeds might easily be shaken out by moder ate blows of a stick, as is related to have been the case with the ketzach of the text. (See FircuEs.) J. F. R.