It is in the notices of the marauding nomad tribes that wandered to the east and south of Pales tine, that we chiefly read of the camel in Scripture. In the time of Jacob there seems to have been a regular traffic between Palestine, and perhaps Arabia, and Egypt, by camel caravans, like that of the Ishmaelites or Midianites who bought Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28). In the terrible inroad of the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Bene Kedem, or children of the cast, ' both they and their camels were without number : and they en tered into the land to destroy it' (Judg. vi. 5, comp. vii. 12). When Gideon slew Zehah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian, he • took away the ornaments [or little moons' ] that [were] on their camels' necks' (viii. 21), afterwards men tioned, with neck-chains, both probably of gold (26). Weals() find other notices of the camels of the Amalekites (I Sam. xv. 3 ; xxx. 17), and of them and other and probably kindred peoples of the same region (xxvii. 8, 9). In the account of the conquest by the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of the Hagarites beyond Jordan, we read that fifty thousand camels were taken (I Chron. v. 18-23). It is not surprising that Job, whose life resembles that of an Arab of the desert, though the modern Arab is not to be taken as the inheritor of his character, should have had a great number of camels (Job i. 3 ; xlii. 12). The Arabian Queen of Sheba came with a caravan of camels bearing the precious things of her native land (I Kings x. 2 ; 2 Chron. ix. 1). We read also of Benhadad's sending a present to Elisha of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' bur den' (2 Kings viii. 9). Damascus, be it remem bered, is close to the desert.
In the prophets the few mentions of the camel seem to refer wholly to foreign nations, excepting where Isaiah speaks of their use, with asses, in a caravan bearing presents from the Israelites to the Egyptians (xxx. 6). He alluaes to the camels of
Midian, Ephah, and Sheba, as in the future to bring wealth to Zion (lx. 6). The ` chariot of camels' may be symbolical (xxi. 7). Jeremiah makes mention of the camels of Kedar, Hazor, and the Bene-Kedem (xlix. 28-33). Ezekiel pro phecies that the Bene-Kedem should take the land of the Ammonites, and Rabbah itself should he `a resting-place for camels' (xxv. 1-5).
Two passages in the N. T., it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God' (Matt. xix. 24) ; and the reproof of blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel' (xxiii. 24), are held to be proverbial expressions. Commenta tors have tried to explain the first, either by sup posing the needle's eye to have been a small gate, or by the reading of xci,u/Xos, a rope, probably an invented word, for Kci,u.siXor, a camel. The former idea seems worthy of consideration, especially as the passage of a camel through a small gate, cor rectly described, when the animal is deprived of his burden, made to kneel, and so unwillingly dragged through by force, affords a figure of remarkable exactness. The raiment of camel's hair' worn by St. John the Baptist with a leathern girdle (Matt. iii. 4 ; comp. Mark i. 6), was no doubt a coarse shirt like those worn by the Bedawees, who like wise make tents of camel's hair. The Baptist's seems to have been the same dress as that of Eli jah (2 Kings i. 8), and others of the earlier prophets (Zech. xiii. H. S. and R. S. P.] The zoological portion of this article, distin guished by marks of quotation, is retained from the preceding editions.