n.,;,pn or ng4pro must be carefully distinguished from a+m, the phtra/ of the unused word In a jackal, according to Gesenius, Lexicon [by Robin son], p. 1138. The sea-monsters,' which are described by Jeremiah (Lament. iv. 3), as 'suck ling their young,' used to be regarded as the mammiferous whales or other larger cetacea (Calmet by Taylor, ` Fragments ' on Natural Histozy, No. xxvi.) They are by Gescnius (1. c.) supposed to bc rather inn, jackals ; this is the reading of some of the MSS. (Kennicott, 546), and Ge senius accepts the Masorete text as an Aramaic form of it. In Ezek. xxix. 3 ; and xxxii. 2, the textual reading which is represented usually as an anomalous singular noun, should no doubt be iN1,171, the regular singular, which may well bear (what the other word could not) the suitable sense of crocodile ; the MS. authority in favour of the latter word is overwhelming (Kennicott, 212). For a description of the 1,m, see CROCODILE ; TANNEEN; WHALE. (6.) ninp, Behemoth. (7-) Levththan; for descriptions of these aquatic animals see the respective articles, and CROCODILE.
(8.) The great fish,' 9j7 3T,1., of Jonah i. 17 [ri,r! in ii. I], was probably some species of shark, such as the Zygcena mallezts, or the Carcharias vidgaris (the white shark), therefore, strictly a fish.* The difficulty that in the LXX. of Jonah, and in the Greek Testament (Matt. xii. 4o), Kir or is the word by which the fish is designated, is removed by the fact that this Greek term does not specifically indicate whales only, as the objection supposes, but any of the larger inhabitants of the deep. (Wesseling,'s Herodot., Fragnt. de Incre ment° p. 789, as quoted in Valpy's Stephani Thes. s. v. licp-os; here ',Pisces,' as well as .8elluce qua,libet ingentes, veluti crococliltis et hipporo tamus,' are included. Accordingly Ki3TOS stands in the LXX., passim, for .11, as weh as for NI).
(See Schleusner, Lex. V. T. s. v. Kijros). For more on Che subject of this fish, see Kitto, Bible Elustr. vi. 399-4(4, and JortAx ; TANNEEN. Admiral Smyth, in the chapter on Icththyology, in his hfea'i terranean, p. 196, says the white shark has been called '70J:a piscis' from its transcendent claim to have been the great fish that swallowed the prophet, since he can readily- ingulf a man whole.' (9.) Of Tobit's fish, O. F. Fritzsche, in his Com mentary on the passage [Tobit vi. _passim] enumer ates nine or ten speculations by different writers. According to Bochart and Helvigius, the Silurus has die best claim. This the former describes as being very large, of great strength and boldness, and ever ready to attack other animals, even men, an inhabitant of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.' C. II. S., in the first edition of this work, combats Dochart's conclusions, and suggests, the Seesar of the Indus. a crocodile, probably of the genus Gavial, which grows to a great size, is eaten, and has a gall bladder, still used to cure obstinate wounds and defluctions.' (But see Winer, B.R.
L 187, note 1). Glaire suggests the sturgeon, but this is more suitable to northern rivers. Pennant mentions the capture of one in the Esk weighing 464 lbs. (British Zoo/o,u, iii. 127). See more in Boehart, Hieroz, v. 14 ; Glaire, Introduction de l'Ancien. et du N. T. ii. 9i [ed. 3], Paris, 1862., and TOBIT. (M.) If Dr. French and Mr. Skin ner, in their Translation of the Psalms, are right in rendering Ps. civ. 26, There swimmeth the nautilus and the whale,' etc. (as if the sacred writer meant to indicate a small, though conspicuous, as well as a laiwe aquatic animal, as equally the ob ject of God's care), we have in the an un expected addition to our Scripture nomenclature of fishes, in what Lord Byron calls- The tender Nautilus who steers his prow, The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea.'—The In their note the translators say ; The nautilus— This little creature floats, at pleasure, upon the surface of the sea. Its shell resembles the hull of a ship, whence it has its name.' Mr. Thrupp ac cepts the new rendering as having much apparent probability' (introduction to the Psalms, ii. 178).* We may add that it gives greater fitness to the 27th verse, which at present is hardly compatible with the 25th and 26th, owing to the intrusion of the clause, thereto the ships. Replace this by the nautilus, and the coherence of the 27th verse with the two preceding is complete in all its terms. (10 Our last specific fish is rather suggested than named in Ezek. xxix. 4, where the prophet twice mentions the fish of the rivers which cleave to the scales' [of the crocodile]. This description seems to identify this fish with the Eckeneis Remora, so remarkable for the adhesive or sucking disc m hich covers the upper part of the head, and enables it to adhere to the body of another fish, or to the bottom of a vessel. (Its fabulous powers of being able even to arrest a vessel in her course are re corded by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxii. ; it is men tioned by Aristotle, Hist. A 71i111. 11. 14, 120.68161, TC, KaXoliai TCPES eX674L3a. lt is also mentioned by Forskal as seen at Gidda, and by Hasselquist at Alexandria). The lump - sucker (Cyclopterus lunatics) is furnished with ventral fins which unite beneath the body and form a concave disc, by which the fish can with ease adhere to stones or other bodies. Either in the remora, with its ad hesive apparatus above, or in the lump-sucker with a similar appendage below, or in both, we have in all probability the prophees fishes, which cleave to the monster of the Nile. So much for the specific instances of aquatic animals mentioned in the Scriptures.