ALUKAH ; Sept. 138eUct ; Vulg. San guiruga ; A. V. ' Horse-leech') occurs only in Prov. xxx. 15 (genus, vennes ; order, intestinata, Linn. Viviparous, brings forth only one offspring at a time ; many species). 'The horse-leech' is properly a species of leech discarded for medical purposes on account of the coarseness of its bite. There is no ground for the distinction of species made in the English Bible.
Although the Hebrew word is translated leech in all the versions, there has been much dispute whether that is its proper meaning. Against Mt received translation, it has been urged that, upon an examination of the context in which it occurs, the introduction of the leech seems strange ; that it is impossible to understand what is meant by its `two daughters,' or three, as the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions assign to it ; and that, instead of the incessant craving apparently attributed to it, the leech drops off when filled. In order to evade these difficulties it has been attempted, but in vain, to connect the passage either with the preceding or subsequent verse. It has also been attempted to give a different sense to the Hebrew word. But as it occurs nowhere besides, in Scripture, and as the root from which it would seem to be derived is never used as a verb, no assistance can be obtained from the Scriptures themselves in this investigation. Recourse is therefore had to the Arabic. The following is the line of criticism pursued by the learned Bochart (Hierozoicon, a Rosenmiiller, 785, etc.) The Arabic word for leech is alakah, which is derived from a verb signifying to hang or to adhere to. But the Hebrew word, alukah he would derive from another Arabic root, aluk, which means 'fate, heavy misfortune, or impending calamity' ; and hence he infers that alukah pro perly means destiny, and particularly the necessity of which attaches to every man by the de cree of God. He urges that it is not strange that offspring should be ascribed to this divine appoint ment, since, in Prov. xxvii. r, offspring is attri buted to time, a day—`Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.' And the Hebrews call events the children of time. We also speak of the womb of time. Thus, then, Bochart considers that destiny, or the divine decree concerning death, is here personified and represented as having, ' two daughters crying, give, give ;' namely, Hades, or the state of departed souls, and the grave. He cites Prov. xxvii. 20, as a parallel passage : 'Hell (sheol) and the grave are never full,' which the Vulgate renders `inferrius et perditio.' Hence he supposes that sheol and the grave are the two daughters of Alukah or Destiny; each cries `give' at the same moment—the former asks for the soul, and the latter for the body of man in death ; both are insatiable, for both involve all man kind in one common ruin. He further thinks that both these are called daughters, because each of the words is of the feminine, or, at most, of the common gender ; and in the 16th verse, the grave (sheol) is specified as one of the 'things that are never satisfied.' In further confirmation of this
view, Bochart cites rabbinical writers, who state that by the word alukah, which occurs in the Chaldee paraphrase on the Psalms, they understand destiny to be signified; and also remark that it has two daughters—Eden and Gehenna, Paradise and H ell— the former of whom never has enough of the souls of the righteous, the latter of the souls of the wicked.
In behalf of the received translation, it is urged that it is scarcely credible that all the ancient translators should have confounded alukah with alakah ; that it is peculiarly unlikely that this should have been the case with the Septuagint translator of the book of Proverbs, because it is believed that 'this ranks next to the translation of the Pentateuch for ability and fidelity of execution ;' and that the author of it must have been well skilled in the two languages (Home's Introduction, ii. 43, ed. '828). It is further pleaded that the application of Arabic analogies to Hebrew words is not decisive ; and finally, that the theory pro posed by Bochart is not essential to the elucidation of the passage. In the preceding verse the writer (not Solomon—see verse x) speaks of 'a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw-teeth as knives to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men ;' and then after the abrupt and picturesque style of the East, especially in their proverbs, which is nowhere more vividly ex emplified than in this whole chapter, the leech is introduced as an illustration of the covetousness of such persons, and of the two distinguishing vices of which it is the parent, avarice and cruelty. May not also the 'two daughters of the leech, crying, Give, give,' be a figurative description of the two lips of the creature (for these it has, and perfectly formed), which are a part of its very complicated mouth? It certainly is agreeable to the Hebrew style to call the offspring of inanimate things daughters, for so branches are called daughters of trees (Gen. xlix. 22—margin). A similar use of the word is found in Eccles. xii. 4, 'All the daughters of music shall be brought low,' meaning the lips, front teeth, and other parts of the mouth. It is well remarked by Professor Paxton, that 'this figurative application of the entire genus is suffi cient to justify the interpretation. The leech, as a symbol, in use among writers of every class and in all ages, for avarice, rapine, plunder, rapacity, and even assiduity, is too well known to need illustra tion' (Plat'. art. 2; Cicero, ad Attic.; Horace, Ars Poet. 476; Theocritus, Pharmaceut. 56, 57 ; etc. etc.)—J. F. D.