PAKKU'OTH onivn), and PEK'AIM (nwp It is related in 2 Kings iv. 38-4o, that Elisha having come again to Gilgal, when there was a famine in the land, and many sons of the prophets were assembled there, he ordered his servant to prepare for them a dish of vegetables. It appears that the servant mistook the fruit of one plant, pakku'oth, for something else, called ova, and that the former was vine-like, that is, with long, weak, slender stems, and that the fruit had some remarkable taste, by which the mistake was dis 'covered whenever the pottage was tasted. Though a few other plants have been indicated, the pak ku'oth has almost universally been supposed to be one of the family of the gourd or cucumber-like plants, several of which are conspicuous for their bitterness, and a few poisonous, while others, it is well known, are edible. Therefore one of the former may have been mistaken for one of the latter, or the oroth may have been some similar shaped fruit, as, for instance, the egg-plant, used as a vegetable. The reasons why pakkzz'oth has been supposed to be one of the gourd tribe, usually the Colocynth, are given in detail by Celsius (1-/iero bat., vol. i. p. 393). I. The name is supposed to be derived from paka, ' to crush,' or to burst ;' and this is the characteristic of the species called the wild cucumber by the ancients. Thus Pliny says, Semen exilit, oculorum etiam pert culo.' This is the kind called gurken by the Germans, and Squirting cucumber in England.
2. The form of the fruit appears to have been ovoid, as the pekaim of I Kings vi. IS are supposed to be the same fruit as pakkzeoth, and are rendered in the A. V. by knops. So in vii. 24. Kimchi distinctly says these were called pekaim, quia figuram haberent pakkzeoth agrestium.' That the form of these was ovoid would appear from the more free exposition of the Chaldaic version of Jonathan, to whom the form of the fruit could not have been unknown : Et figur ovorum subter labium ejus' (via'. Cels. 1. c., p. 397).
3. The seeds of the pakkzeoth, moreover, yielded oil, as appears from the tract Shabbath (ii. 2). The seeds of the different gourd and cucumber like plants are well known to yield oil, which was employed by the ancients, and still is in the East, both as medicine and in the arts. 4. The bitter ness which was probably perceived on eating of the pottage, and which disappeared on the addition of meal, is found in many of the cucumber tribe, and conspicuously in the species which have been usually selected as the pakku'oth, that is, the Colo cynth (Gummi: Colocynthis), the Squirting Cucum ber (Moznordica Elateriunz), and Cmczenzis prophe tarunz : all of which are found in Syria, as related by various travellers. The Coloquintida is essen
tially a desert plant. Mr. Kitto says, In the desert parts of Syria, Egypt, and Arabia, and on the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, its tendrils run over vast tracts of ground, offering a prodigious number of gourds, which are crushed under foot by camels, horses, and men. In winter we have seen the extent of many miles covered with the connecting tendrils and dry gourds of the preceding season, the latter exhibiting precisely the same appearance as in our shops, and when crushed, with a crackling noise, beneath the feet, discharging, in the form of a light powder, the valuable drug which it contains. In the Arabic version, hunza/ (which is the Colocynth) is used as the synonym for pakhze oth in 2 Kings iv. 39. The Globe Cucumber, Mr. Kitto continues, derives its specific name (Cucumis prophetarum) from the notion that it afforded the gourd which the sons of the prophets' shred by mistake into their pottage, and which made them declare, when they came to taste it, that there was death in the pot.' This plant is smaller in every part than the com mon melon, and has a nauseous odour, while its fruit is to the full as bitter as the Colaquintida. The fruit has a rather singular appearance, from the manner in which its surface is armed with prickles, which are, however, soft and harmless.' (Pictorial Palestine; Physical Geog., p. cclxxxix.) But this plant, though it is nauseous and bitter as the Co/ocynth, yet the fruit not being bigger than a cherry, does not appear likely to have been that which was shred into the pot. Celsius, however, was of opinion that the Cucumis agrestis of the ancients, and which was found by Belon in descend ing from Mount Sinai, was the plant. This, he says, is the Olera asini of the Hebrews, the Chate al henzarof the Arabs, and the Cm-lends asiezinus of the druggists of his day. This plant is now called ilfomordica dater/um, or Squirting Cucumber, and is a well-known drastic purgative, violent enough in its action to be considered even a poison. Its fruit is ovate, obtuse, and scabrous. But it is not easy to say whether this or the Coloeynth. is most likely to have been the plant mistaken for moth; but the fruit of this species might certainly be mistaken for young gherkins. Both are bitter and poisonous.—J. F. R.