KETZACH (rip ; Sept. AeXcfpOtop), alsc written KEZACH and KETSAH, occurs only in Is. xxviii. 25, 27, and is translated fiches, that is, vetches, in the A. V. It is no doubt from the difficulty of proving the precise meaning of ket zach, that different plants have been assigned as its representative. But if we refer to the con text, we learn some particulars which at least restrict it to a certain group, namely, to such as are cultivated. Thus, ver. 25, When he (the ploughman) bath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the filches (kazach):' And again, ver. 27, ` For the filches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a. cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin ; but fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod.' From which we learn that the grain called ketzach was easily separated from its capsule, and therefore beaten out with a stick.
Although ketzach, in Chaldee kizeha, is always acknowledged to denote some seed, yet interpreters have had great difficulty in determining the parti cular kind intended—some translating it peas, others, as Luther and the A. V., vetches, but without any proof. Meibomius considers it to be the white poppy, and others, a black seed. This last interpretation has the most numerous, as well as the oldest, authorities in its support. Of these a few are in favour of the black poppy-seed, but the majority, of a black seed common in Egypt, etc. (Celsius, Hierobot. ii. 7o). The Sept. trans lates it AeXdvOtov, the Vulg. git, and Tremellius me/an/aim, while the Arabic has shoonez. All these mean the same thing, namely, a very- black coloured and aromatic seed, still cultivated and in daily employment as a condiment in the East (Pliny, xx. 17, 71 ; Dioscor., 93). The shoonez, of the Arabs is, moreover, the same plant or seed which is usually called ` black cumin.'
So one kind of cumin is said by Dioscorides to have seeds like those of melanthion or nigella. It was commonly cultivated in Egypt, and P. Alpinus mentions it as ` Suneg lEgyptiis.' The Arabs, besides shoonez, also call it hub-alsouda, and the Persians seah dana, both words signifying black seed. One species, named N. Ina'ica by Dr. Rox burgh, is called kala jeera in India, that is, black zeera or cumin, of the family of Ranunculaceze. Nigella sativa is alone cultivated in India, as in most eastern countries, and continues in the pre sent day, as in the most ancient times, to be used both as a condiment and as a medicine ' (Illust. Hi mal. Bot., p. 46). If we consider that this appears to have been always one of the cultivated gmins of the East, and compare the character of nigella with the passages in which ketzach is men tioned, we shall find that the former is applicable to them all. Indeed, Bartenora states, that the barbaious or vulgar name of the kezach was nielle, that is, nigella. The various species of nigella are herbaceous (several of them being indigenous in Europe, others cultivated in most parts of Asia), with their leaves deeply cut and linear, their flowers terminal, most of them having under the calyx leafy involucres which often half surround the flower. The fruit is composed of five or six capsules, which are compressed, oblong, pointed, sometimes said to be hornlike, united below, ard divided into several cells, and enclosing numerous, angular, scabrous, black-coloured seeds. From the nature of the capsules, it is evident, that when they are ripe, the seeds might easily be shaken out by moderate blows of a stick, as is related to have been the case with the ketzack of the text—J. F. R.