SPIDER (spi'dar), (Heb. ak-kaw-beesh'; Sept. cipcixv77, spider), occurs in Job viii:14; Is. lix :5. In the other instance in which the word is used in our version (Prov. xxx :28), and where the Hebrew has sem-aw-meeth',:r, the Sept.
Kal-a-bo'tas, spotted liz.ard, and the Vulg. there is most probably a mistranslation. In the first of these passages, the reference seems clear to the spider's web, or literally, house, whose fra gility is alluded to as a fit representation of the hope of a profane, ungodly, or profligate person ; for so the Heb. word really means, and not 'hypo crite,' as in our version. The object of such a person's trust or confidence, who is always really in imminent danger of ruin, maybe compared for its uncertainty to the spider's web. 'He shall lean upon his house (i. e. to keep it steady when it is shaken) ; he shall hold it fast (i. e. when it is about to be destroyed) ; nevertheless it shall not endure (verse 15). In the second passage (Is. lix :5) it is said. 'The wicked weave the spider's web,' literally, 'thin threads'; but it is added 'their thin threads shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works;' that is, their artifices shall neither suc ceed, nor conceal themselves, as does the spider's web. This allusion intimates no antipathy to the
spider itself, or to its habits when directed towards its own purpose ; but simply to the adoption of those habits by man towards his fellow-creatures. There has long been a popular prejudice against spiders, and the poets have too often contributed to the popular prejudices against insects. Thom son stigmatizes spiders as 'Cunning and fierce— Mixture abhorred but these epithets are in reality as unjustly ap plied to them (at least with reference to the mode by which they procure necessary subsistence), as to the patient sportsman. who lays snares for the birds that are to serve for the dinner of his fam ily : while it can he further pleaded in behalf of spiders, that they are actively serviceable to the human race, in checking the superfecundity of other insects. and afford in their various pro cedures the most astonishing displays of that Su preme intelligence by which they are directed.
J. F. D.