GOATH (r1;b, or with stiff., rin3fa ; vulg.
Goatha), mentioned only Jer. xxxi. 39, where it apparently denotes some prominent object which served to mark in one direction the boundary of Jerusalem ; but whether it were a hill, or a valley, or a pool, is altogether uncertain. In the Targ. of Jonathan it is rendered ;64, rorp, the heffir's pool; and this derives some slight support from the bable connection of the word with nva mugiit (Ges.
s. v.) In the Sept. the clause reads 7repucvacuS-71 germ KincXcp bCXEKTCJI, Xacov. Equally' uncertain is the position of the place. The context seems to favour the conjecture that it was on the southern side of the city.—S. N.
GOB. nia, is. 4 ; Sept. auptSas ; Vulg.
is deficient ; Eng. locusts ; Amos vii. 1, briyopi; ciepiozev ; Aquila, f3opciScep (voratrices), locustx, grasshoppers ; iii. 17, cirr4X0os, or cirrAc locusti-e, grasshoppers. Here the lexicogra phers, finding DO Hebrew root, resort to the Arabic. tiochart derives it from the Arabic t4;11, ` to creep out' (of the ground), as the locusts do in spring. But this applies to the young of all species of locusts, and his quotations from Aristotle and Pliny occur unfortunately in general descriptions of the locust.
Castell gives another Arabic root sand, to cut' or ` tear,' but this is open to a similar objection. Parkhurst proposes =, any thing gibbous, curved, or arched, and gravely adds, the locust in the cale;75illar state, so called from its shape in general, or from its continually hunch ing out its back in moving.' The Sept. word in
Nahum, cIrreXcgos, may be shewn to mean a per fect insect and species. Accordingly, Aristotle speaks of its parturition and eggs (Hist. Amin. -v. 29 ; so also Plutarch, De hid. ct Osir.) It seems, however, not unlikely that it means a wing less species of locust, genus Podisma of Latreille. Grasshoppers, which are of this kind, he includes under the genus Tettix. Hesychius defines the rirriXepos as ciKpis Attcpd, a small locust ;' and Pliny describes them as ` locustarum minim, sine perm's, quas attelabos vocant' (Hist. Nat. xxix. 5). Accordingly the Sept. ascribes only leaping to it, eEiptaro /In arriXEI3os. In Nahum we have the construction +211 locusta locustarum, which the lexicons compare with vurip vip, and ex plain as a vast multitude of locusts. Archbishop Newcomc suggests that the phrase is either a double reading,- where the scribes had a doubt which was the true reading, or a mistaken repeti tion not expunged.' He adds, that we may sup pose the contracted plural for 12i'DI (Improved Version of the Minor Prophets, Pontefr. 1809, p. SS).
GOB (n), a place mentioned in 2 Sam. xxi. 18 and 19, where battles were fought between the Philistines and Israelites. The Septuagint reads in one verse ra-, and in the other 'PEA, Al. ; but the parallel passage in Chron. xx. 4 reads Gezer [GEzER]. The two places were probably close together, but the site is unknown.—J. L. P.