ASENATH (l-1:1;),4 ; Sept. ' Aoes40), the daugh ter of Potipherah, priest of On, whom the king of Egypt bestowed in marriage upon Joseph. [JosEPH.] No better etymology of Asenath has been proposed than that by Jablonski, who (Panth. Egypt. v. i. p. 56, and Opuscul. ii. 208) regards the forms Asenath and ' Acres10 as representative of a Coptic compound Assheneit. The latter part of this word he takes to be the name of Neith, the titular goddess of Sais, the Athene of the Greeks ; and considers the whole to mean worshipper of Neith. Gesenius, in his Thesaurus, suggests that the original Coptic form was Asneith, which means who belongs to Neith—qure Neith est. That the name refers to this goddess is the generally received opinion (in modern times, Von Bohlen alone has, in his Genesis, proposed an unsatisfactory Semitic etymology) ; it is favoured by the fact that the Egyptians, as Jablonski has shewn, were ac customed to choose names expressive of some re lation to their gods ; and it appears liable to no stronger objection than the doubt, whether the wor ship of Neith existed at so early a period as that of the composition of the book of Genesis.—J. K.
ASER. [AsHER.] ASH (23) occurs in Job iv. 19 ; xiii. 28 ; xxvii. r8 ; Is. 1. 9 ; li. 8 ; Hosea v. 12 : in all which places the LXX. read or)s, and the Vulg. tinea ; A. V. moth. In Ps. xxxix. I1, eV, Sept. apcixP73, Vulg. aranea. The same Hebrew word occurs in the phrase moth-eaten,' Job xiii. 28 ; Sept. o-rn-b pours's, eomeditur a finei s ; James V. 2, onr613porra, a finis comesta. The word (rip is used also in Ecclus. xix. 3 ; xlii. 13 : Matt. vi. 19, 20; Luke xii. 33. There is no biblical insect whose identity is better ascertained. The following is the chain of evidence through which it is traced. The word arjs, adopted by the Sept., unquestionably means ` moth' in the writings of Aristotle (who was con temporary with the translators of the earliest and best rendered portions of the Sept.) ; for when treating of the generation of insects he says : rlserac be sal eau Ppacipta, rd b 1plocs, xal boa 4 iplow 1014Y, olov 01 aqTES, la4)60YraL (AMOY bray Kostoprcan lina. 'Other small creatures are generated, some in wool, and in such substances as are formed from wool, as for instance, moths, or moth worms, which are principally produced in dusty woollen substances :' and, again, speaking of the same insect, yiserat be Is x4r(pt d csic6X7). °bras, this worm or insect is produced in gar ments.' To the same effect, Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus, speaking of the herb, roXiov, says, Tare be xal nobs robs efiras robs ev rois 1p.arlocs ciyaBbs--' this is good against the moths in clothes' (Hist. Plant. i. 16). Menander, educated under Theophrastus, speaking of things which consume, says, rd 5' 1,udrtov of alms, ` moths consume clothes.' Then with regard to the word tines,'" adopted by the Vulg., Pliny uses it in translating our first quotation from Aristotle (` pulvis in lanis at veste fineas creat,' Hist. Nat. xi. 41, edit. Har duin), and elsewhere, for the moth, though he also applies the word to other insects, etc. ; and from the time of Pliny to Aldrovandus, this, and almost all the other names in natural history, remained the same, and were retained as much as possible by Willughby and Linnreus. The under the order Lepidoptera, genus Phalan, gives the species of moths, Tinea tapetzella, T. pellionella, and T. recurvaria sareitella, as peculiarly destruc tive to woollen clothes, furs, etc. The following allusions to the moth occur in Scripture ;—to its being produced in clothes : ` for from garments cometh a moth' (Ecclus. xlii. 13) ; to its well known fragility : ` mortal men are crushed before the moth' (Job iv. r9), literally ` before the face
of the moth,' but which words really mean 'like as the moth is crushed.' The Hebrew word here translated before,' occurs in the sense of as or like in I Sam. i. 16 : count not thine hand maid ($1,•1-!11 +=$) as a daughter of Bella! :' literally, before,' or as the face of :' and so the Sept, understood our passage, (77)765 rpbwov. The Latin phrase ad faciem occurs in the same sense n Plautus (Cistell. i. 1. 73) : ad istam faciem est morbus qui me macerat.' Others take this allu sion to the moth in an active sense, thus—' as a garment is consumed by the moth f so the Vulg. a tines. The allusion to 'the house of the moth' (Job. xxvii. 18) seems to refer plainly to the silky spindle-shaped case, covered with detached hairs and particles of wool, made and inhabited by the larva of the Tinea sar citella ; or to the felted case or tunnel formed by the larva of the Tinea nella ; or to the arched gallery formed by eating through wool by the larva of the Tinea tapetzella. References occur to the destructiveness of the clothes-moth : as a garment that is moth-eaten' (Job xiii. 28) ; the moth shall eat them up' (Is. I. 9) ; 'the moth shall eat them up like a garment' (li. 8) ; I will be to Ephraim as a moth,' i. e., will consume him (Hos. v. 12) ; comp. Matt. i. 19, 20 ; Luke xii. 33 ; James v. 2, metaphori cally ; and Ecclus. xix. 3—' Moths and worms shall have him that cleaveth to harlots,' but the better reading is cr7).11-71, rottenness.' Since the of the Orientals, in ancient times, con sisted partly of garments, both new and old' (Matt. xiii. 52 ; and comp. Josh. vii. 21 ; Judges xiv. 12), the ravages of the clothes-moth afforded them a lively emblem of destruction. Their trea sures also consisted partly of corn laid up in barns, etc. (Luke xii. 18, 24) ; and it has been supposed that the j3parts, translated rust,' joined with the iris in Matt. vi. 19, 20, refers also to some species of moth, etc., probably in the larva state, which destroys corn. Kuinoel says the curculio, or kornwurm,' the larva of the Tinea granella, is in jurious to corn. Compare the common Roman phrase blatta et Linea. Aquila gives flpa ats for tiy in Jer. 1. 9 ; and those words, Gods which can not save themselves from moths,' 13,0cogLi-row, Ep. of Jer. xii., may be another instance. Comp. Mal. iii. II, Sept. and MS. B. in margin, and Sym machus in Is. v. 9. The word co occurs, as well as the word vy, in Is. 1i. 8 : 'the tjj) shall eat them up like a garm..gt, and the Op shall eat them like wool,' Sept. 6s Om 1313(001)o-ow bird (comp. the first quotation from Aristotle), where the similarity between the Hebrew and Greek word is striking. If two species of moth be here alluded to, may not the pp be the distinctive name for the Ttnea tapetzella, which is peculiarly destruc tive to wool?' [SAs.] The Sept. also gives 7.)s for air, Prov. xiv. 30, and for p.m, Micah vii. 4. Moths, like fleas, etc., amid other more immediate purposes of their existence, incidentally serve as a stimulus to human industry and cleanliness ; for, by a remarkable discrimination in her instinct, the parent moth never deposits her eggs in garments frequently overlooked or kept clean. Indeed, the most remarkable of all proofs of animal intelli gence, is to be found in the larvae of the water moth, which gets into straws, and adjust the weight of their case so that it can always float : when too heavy they add a piece of straw or wood, and when too light a bit of gravel (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 42). J. F. D.