DIZAHAB (zriri ; Sept. Karaxpithea). The passage in which this word occurs was long re garded as one of the most difficult, in a geographical point of view, in the Bible : ' These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jor dan, in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab' (Deut. i. i). The object of the sacred writer is to point out definitely where Moses spake. It was ' in the plain,' that is, as the Hebrew has it, the Ara bah. This Arabah lay over against' &in) the Red Sea ; it began at the Red Sea and ran from it northward. It lay between Paran on the west, and Tophel, a town of Edom, on the east. Three other places are named along its borders, the last of which is Dizahab. The word means ' possessor (or place) of gold,' and was probably at or near gold fields. There is a place called Dahab (` gold ') on the western shore of the Aelanitic Gulf, which Robin son, Gesenius, and others, would identify with Dizahab, but it is too far south (Robinson, B. R. ii. 187 ; Wilson, Lands of the Bible, i. 235 ; Burck hardt, Travels in Syria, 523).—J. L. P.
DOB (Zll ; Sept. lEprros), in Arabic dub, in Persic deeb and dab, is noticed in I Sam. xvii. 34, 36, 37 2 Sam. xvii. 8 ; 2 Kings ii. 24 ; Prov. xvii. 12 • xxviii. 15 ; Is. xi. 7 ; Lam. iii. Io ; Ifos. xiji. 8 ; Amos, v. 19, etc. Although the moderns have denied the existence of bears in Syria and Africa, there cannot be a doubt of the fact, and of a species of the genus Ursus being meant in the Hebrew texts above noted. David defended his
flock from the attacks of a bear (r Sam. xvii. 34, 35, 36), and bears destroyed the children Who mocked the prophet (2 Kings ii. 24). The genus Ursus is the largest of all the plantigrade carnassiers, and with the faculty of subsisting on fruit or honey unites a greater or less propensity, according to the species, to slaughter and animal food. To a sullen and ferocious disposition it joins immense strength, little vulnerability, considerable sagacity, and the power of climbing trees. The brown bear Ursus arctos, is the most sanguinary of the species of the Old Continent, and Ursus Syriacus, or the bear of Palestine, is one very nearly allied to it, differing only in its stature being proportionably lower and longer, the head and tail more prolonged, and the colour a dull buff or light bay, often clouded, like the Pyrenxan variety, with darker brown. On the back there is a ridge of long semi erect hairs running from the neck to the tail. It is yet found in the elevated woody parts of Lebanon. In the time of the first crusades these beasts were still numerous and of considerable ferocity ; for during the siege of Antioch, Godfrey of Bouillon, according to Math. Paris, slew one in defence of a poor woodcutter, and was himself dangerously wounded in the encounter.—C. H. S.