IIONEY. In the Scripture there are three words denoting different sweet substances, all ot which are rendered by honey' in the A.V. These it is necessary to distinguish.
1. -13.,4 year, which only occurs in Sam. xiv.
25, 27. 29; Cant. v. ; and denotes the honey of bees and that only.
2. rin nopheth, honey that drops, usually associ , ated with the comb, and therefore bee-honey. This occurs in Ps. xix. ; Prov. v. 3 ; xxiv. 13 ; xxvii. 7 ; Cant. iv. II.
3. Cir.t1 debesh. This is the most frequent word.
It sometimes denotes bee-honey, as in Judg xiv. 8, but more commonly a vegetable honey distilled from trees, and called nzanna by chemists ; also the syrup of dates, and even dates themselves. It appears also sometimes to stand as a general term for all kinds of honey.
We shall here confine our remarks to honey in general, and that of bees in particular, referring for the vegetable honey to MANNA, and for the date honey to SHEcHAR.
It is very evident that the land of Canaan abounded in honey. It is indeed described as 'a land flowing with milk and honey' (Exod. iii. 8, etc.) ; which we apprehend to refer to all the sweet substances which the different Hebrew words indi cate, as the phrase seems too large to be confined to the honey of bees alone. Yet the great number
of bees in Palestine bas been noticed by many tra vellers ; and they were doubtless still more com mon in ancient times when the soil was under more general cultivation. A recent traveller, in a sketch of the natural history of Palestine, names bees, beetles, and mosquitoes, as the insects which are most common in the country (Schubert, Reise ins Morgenlandc, 12o).
The natural history of the bee, with illustrations of the passages of Scripture in which its name occurs, has been given under a distinct head [DE BORAH] ; and the use of honey in food, under another [Fool)]. The principal use of the present notice is therefore that of an index to the other articles in which the different parts of this large subject are separately investigated.
The wild honey ' (ktAL dryptcp) which, with locusts, formed the diet of John the Baptist, WaS nrobably the vegetable honey, which we refer to