KINNINI (MD and D'IZ, Exod. viii. 16, 17, IS : cf. Hell 12, 13, 14; Ps. cv. 3r ; Sept. crKaofs. or alevircs; Vulg. eyniphes and seyniphes Wisd. xix. ro ; Sept. crKplira ; Alex. Aid. o-kviOar ; Vulg. nzuscas). The name of the creature employed in the third plague upon Egypt, miraculously pro duced from the dust of the land. Its exact nature has been much disputed. Those who reason from the root of the word in the Hebrew text, and as sume it to be derived from 117, to fix, settle, or stablish, infer lice to be meant, from their fixing themselves on mankind, animals, etc. The mean ing of the root is, however, too general to afford by itself any assistance in ascertaining the particu lar species intended. Dr. A. Clarke has further inferred from the words in man and in beast,' that it was the acorns sangmisagas, or tick' (Com ment. on Excel. viii. 16). But since it is spoken of as an Egyptian insect, the name for it may be purely Egyptian, and may have no connection with any Hebrew root (Michaelis, Sattl. ad Lex., n. 1174). However this may be, the preposition from which Dr. Clarke argues is too various in meaning to assist his hypothesis. Nor is it certain whether the word is singular or plural. The varia tion, both in letters and points, seems to betoken uncertainty somewhere, though Gesenius takes nn in the collective sense. Michaelis also remarks that if it be a Hebrew word for lice, it is strange that it should have disappeared from the cognate tongues, the Aramaic, Samaritan, and Ethiopic. The rendering of the Septuagint seems highly valuable when it is considered that it was given by learned Jews resident in Egypt, that it occurs in the most ancient and best executed portion of that version, and that it can be elucidated by the writ ings of ancient Greek naturalists, etc. Thus Aris totle, who was nearly contemporary with the Septuagint translators of Exodus, mentions the riircs (the crrili'qSer of the Septuagint) among in sects able to distinguish the smell of honey (Hist. Animal., iv. S), and refers to species of birds which he calls cuauroOct-ya, that live by hunting cuvires. (viii. 6). The ICULITES are born in certain trees, as the oak, the fig-tree, and they seem to subsist upon the sweet moisture which is collected under the bark. They are also produced on some vegetables' (Hist. Plant.,iv. 17, and ii. nit.) This description applies to athletes, or rather to the various species of gall flies' (Cynips, Linn.) Hesychius, in the beginning of the third century, explains crtcv4, .r6.)ov xlwop6v TE rerpcbrrepov, a green four-winged creature,' and quotes Phrynichus as applying the name to a sordid wretch, and adds, &TO Toi1 thiptolou Too ep Tag VXots, roi/ Kara 13paxi, air& ramcOlovros, from the little creature among trees, which speedily devours them.' Philo (A.D. 4o) and Origen in the second century, who both lived in Egypt, describe it in terms suitable to the gnat or mosquito (Philo, Vita Non's, i. 97. 2, ed. Mangey ; Origen, tertia Exod.); as does also Augustine in the third or fourth century (De Convenientio, etc.) But Theodoret, in the same age, distinguishes between ckvircs and xr.kvw 7FES ( Vita 7aeobi). Suidas (A.D. II00) says, 0-to41//, Noy Kwpcorf.7.,S€3, 'resembling gnats,' and adds, 6771 'yap CKPIIP NOV yerpop EuXocbci-yov, a little creature that eats wood.' These Christian fathers, however, give no authority for their explanations ; and Bochart remarks that they seem to be speak. ing of gnats under the name oloci7res, which word, Ile conjectures, biassed them from its resemblance to the Hebrew. Schleusner adds, Giessen/a in a-totem-h. CKPIOES, p.tKpit inra ras at:A/um-as
(less than gnats), Lex. Cyrilli, MS. Brem. o-n-Vicp6s P01.1961d &TIP eOLK6Ta KC:51,4LP (very small creatures like gnats'). From this concurrence of testimony it would appear, that not lice, but some species of gnats is the proper rendering, though the ancients, no doubt, included other species of in sects under the name. Mr. Bryant, however, gives a curious turn to the evidence derived from ancient naturalists. He quotes Theophrastus, and admits that a Greek must be the best judge of the mean ing of the Greek word, but urges that the Septua gint translators concealed the meaning of the He brew word, which he labours to prove is lice, under the word they have adopted, for fear of offending the Ptolemies, under whose inspection they trans lated, and thc Egyptians in general, whose detes tation of lice Iv-as as ancient as the thne of Hero dotus (ii. 37), (but who includes ri diao gvcrap6v, any other foul creature'), and whose disgust, he thinks, would have been too much excited by reading that their nation once swarmed with those creatures through the instrumentality of the servants of the God of the Jews (Plagues of Egypt, Land. i794, p. 56, etc.) This suspicion, if admitted, upsets all the previous reasoning. It is also incon sistent with 13ryant's favourite hypothesis, that the plagues of Egypt were so adapted as to afford a practical mortification of the prejudices of the Egyptians. Nor could a plague of lice, upon his own principles, have been more offensive to them than the plague on the river Nile, and the frogs, etc., which he endeavours to show were most sig nally opposed to their religious notions. Alight it not be suggested with equal probability that the Jews in later ages had been led to interpret the word lice as being peculiarly humiliating to the Egypt ians? (see Joseph. Antiq. ii. 14. 3, who, however, makes the Egyptians afflicted with phthiriasis.) The rendering of the Vulgate affords us no assist ance, being evidently formed from that of the Septuagint, and not being illustrated by any Ro man naturalist, but found only in Christian Latin writers (see Facciolati, in voc.) The other ancient versions, etc., are of no value in this inquiry. 'Phey adopt the popular notion of the times, and Bo chart's reasonings upon them involve, as Rosen (apud I3ochart) justly complains, many unsafe permutations of letters. If, then, the Sep tuagint be discarded, we are deprived of the highest source of information. Bochart also reasons upon the similarity of the word inn to K6p(Scs, the word in Aristotle for the eggs of fleas, lice, bugs, etc., whether infesting mankind or beasts (vi. 26), but which is not more like it than Kthmorcs ; and an enthusiast in etymology might remark that Kinnaes means both dust' and lice,' which Scaliger explains lender, nits,' ab exi;o,ititate similes pd reri, from their minuteness, like dust' (p. 51S). It is strange that it did not occur to Bochart that if the plague had been lice, it would have been easily imitated by the magicians, which was at tetnpted by them, but in vain (Exod. viii. Nor is the objection valid, that if this plague were gnats, etc., the plague of flies would be antici pated, since the latter most likely consisted of one particular species having a different destination [FIN] ; whereas this may have consisted of not only mosquitoes or gnats, but of some other species which also attack domestic cattle, as the cestrus, or tabanus, or zimb (Bruce's Travels, ii. 315,Svo); on which supposition these two plagues would be sufficiently distinct.