Fish
Fish
(דָּג, dag, so called from its great fecundity; Gr. ἰχθὐς, Ge 9:2; Nu 11:22; Jon 2:1,10; Mt 7:10; Mt 14:17; Mt 15:34; Lu 5:6; Joh 21:6,8,11). The Hebrews recognised fish as one of the great divisions of the animal kingdom, and, as such, give them a place in the account of the creation (Genesis i,-21, 28; 'where, however, they are included under the general terms שֶׁרֶוֹ, she'rets, swarm, and רֹמֶשֶׂת, romneseth, creeping thing, i.e. destitute of legs; and as distinguished from the larger inhabitants of the deep, תִּנַּינִים, tanninim'), as well as in other passages where an exhaustive description of living creatures is intended (Ge 9:2; Ex 20:4; De 4:18; 1Ki 4:33). They do not, however, appear to have acquired any intimate knowledge of this branch' of natural history. Although they were acquainted with some of the names given by the Egyptians to the different species. (for Josephus, War, iii, 10, 8, compares one found, in the Sea of Galilee to the coracinus), they did not adopt a similar method of distinguishing them ; nor was any classification attempted beyond the broad divisions of clean and unclean,. great and small. The former was established by the Mosaic law (Le 11:9-10), which pronounced unclean such fish as were devoid of fins and scales: these were and are regarded as unwholesome food in Egypt (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt. iii, 58, 59), so much so that one of the laws of El-Hakim prohibited the sale, or even the capture of them (Lane, Modern Egyptians, i, 136, note; De Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe, 2d ed. i, 98). This distinction is probably referred to in the terms σαπρά (esui nona ido.nea, Schleusner's Lex. s.v.; Trench, On Parables, p. 137) and καλά (Mt 13:48). This law of Moses may have given rise to some casuistry, as many fishes have scales, which, though imperceptible when first caught, are very apparent after the skin is in the least dried. Maimonides, with less reason, sees in the Levitical distinctions of fins and scales among fishes "marks whereby the more noble and excellent species might be distinguished from those that were inferior" (Townley's sTore Noevochi.in, p. 305). In no ordinance of the laws of Moses do we find fishes prescribed as religious offerings. In this respect, as well as many others, these laws were opposed to the heathen rituals, which appointed fish-offerings to various' deities. Besides the lepidotus, the oxyrhincus, the phagrus (eel, "fron its unwholesome qualities not eaten by the ancient Egyptians," Wilkinson, v, 251), latus, and nceotes were held sacred in various parts of ancient Egypt (Clem. Alex., Plutarch, Strabo, Athenaeus, are the authorities referred to by Sir G.Wilkinson, v, 125). In the Ordinances of Menu, ch. v (on Diet, Purification, etc.), sees. 15, 16, "the twice-born man is commanded diligently 'to abstain from fish; yet the two fishes called pathina (sheat- fish, Silurus pelorius) and rohila (rohi-fish, Cyprinus denwiculatus) imay be eaten by the guests, when offered at a repast. in honor of the gods or manes; and so may the rajiva (a large fish, Cyprinus Niloticus), the sinhatunzda, and the sasalca (probably shrimps and prawns) of every species" (Sir W. Jones's Laws of JlMenit, by Haughton, p. 146). Similarly in the heathen observances of other nations'; thus Apua [queryj Anchovy] Veneri erat sacra.; Concha [perhaps 'Pearl' oyster] Veneri stat; Mullus Diane ; pisces omnes Neptuno; Thunnus Neptunio." (Beyer, Addit. ad Seldeni Syntag. de Diis Syriis; Ugolini Thesaur. 33:338. 'Vossius, in Hoffmanni Lexicon, iii, 771, has a much longer list of fourteen fishes, "a veteribus pro Diis habiti." Consecrated fishes were kept in reservoirs, with-rings of gold, or silver, or brass attached to them. So Sir J.Chardin in Harmer, iii, 58.) It was perhaps as an image of fecundity that the fish was selected as an object of idolatry: the-worship of it was widely spread, from Egypt (Wilkinson, iii, 58) to Assyria (Layard, Nineveh, ii, 467), and even India (Baur, Mythologie, ii, 58). -Among the Philistines, Dagon (=littlefish) was represented by a figure half man and half fish (1Sa 5:4). On this account the worship of fish is expressly prohibited (De 4:18). SEE DAGON. The form of a fish (Notius Poseidon) was, from remote ages, a type of protective dominion, which the symbolizing spirit of the ancients caused to pass into Christianity, as appears from Eusebius (Life of Constantine) and St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei). On the walls of the oldest catacombs of Rome the representation of the ΙΧΘΥΣ is frequently discernible, and always interpreted as an emblem of the Saviour.
Taking fishes in the scientific sense of "oviparous, vertebrated, cold- blooded animals, breathing water by means of gills or branchice, and generally provided with fins," none are mentioned by name throughout the 0. T. and N.T.; but, regarded in the popular and inexact sense of aquatic animals, inhabitants more or less of the water, we meet with eleven instances which require some notice here. -
1. That well-known batrachian reptile, the 'frog (צפִרדֵעִ, tseparde'i), which emerges from a fish-like infancy, breathing by gills instead of lungs, and respiring water instead of air, is often mentioned in Exodus 8 but only in two passages else, Ps 78:45; Ps 105:30. SEE FROG.
2. The annelid horse-leech, whose name occurs only once, Pr 30:15 (עֲלוּקָה, alukah'). "It would appear that the blood-sucking quality of this useful little animal is a direct and exclusive ordination of Providence for man's advantage. That blood is not the natural food of the animal is probable from the fact that, in the streams and pools which they inhabit, not one in a hundred could, in the common course of things, ever indulge such an appetite; and even when received into the stomach, it does not appear to be digested; for, though it will remain there for weeks without coagulating or becoming putrid, yet the animal usually dies unless the blood be vomited through the mouth" (Gosse's Zoology, ii, 374). Of course it is the smaller species, the Hirudo medicinalis, that is here referred to. But the larger species, the Hcemopsis satuigsugiqa, or "horse-leech," has a still greater voracity for blood. Bochart (Sieqroz. ii,.. 796-802) and Schultens (Proverbs in loc.) give another turn to Pr 30:15, by identifying עלוקה with the Arabic aluk, and maldngfte or destiny, instead of the horse-leech, the insatiable exacter. The ancient versions, however, must be deemed to outweigh their learned speculations; added to which the Arabic alakat, the Syriac aluka, and the Chaldee and Talmudic: עִלקָא or עֲלוּקַא, -all designate the leech, which is as abundant in the East as it ever was in our Western countries. The blood-appetite of this animal made it suitable to point a proverb: Horace says, Non missura cutecm, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo (De Arte Poet. 476). With this comp. Plautus, Epidicus, ii, 2, 4, 5; and Cicero, ad Atticum, lib. i, epist. 13. SEE HORSELEECH.
3. The testaceous mollusk (Ostrea marina, Gesenius, Thes. p. 1263), called by the Hebrews אִרגָּמָן, argamann'; by Avicenna, Alargiawan; by Galen, Θαλασσία φορφύρα, is the Murex trunculus of, zoology, 'from which the renowned Tyrian dye used to be obtained. This shell-fish (and not the "purple" extracted from it) is with good reason supposed by Gesenius to be referred to in Song 7:5: The tresses of thine head are like the wreathed shell of the purple-fish ; reminding us of the ancient head-dresses of the Athenians, described by Thucydides, i, 6, 3 (comp. the conical head-tuft of the Roman Tutulus [Varro, De .ing. latin. 7:3, 90], and Virgil's Crines nodantur in aurum). A second reference to this shell-fish probably occurs in Eze 27:7.. The Tyrians seem to have imported some ,murices from the Peloponnesus (the same as "Elishah" according to Heeren, Researches, Asiatic Nations [Oxford. trans.], i, 361); and Gesenius supposes that these,, the material' out of which the celebrated dye was procured, arc referred to by the prophet in his enumeration of the Tyrian merchandise.' That these fishes were supplied from the coast of Greece we learn from Horace, Od. ii' 18, 7 (Laconics puspurce) from Pausanias, iii, 21, 6; and from Pliny, ix,.36. SEE PURPLE.
4. The other word used by Ezekiel in this passage, תּבֵלֶת, teke'leth, in described by Gesenius, Thes. 1503, as ''a species of shellfish (Conchylium, Helix ianthinae [conches-]), found' cleaving to the rocks in the "Mediterranean Sea, covered with a violet shell (Forskal, Descript. animal. p. 127), from which was procured a dark-blue dye." In the many other passages where these two words occur, they undoubtedly designate either the colors or the material dyed in them. The phrase "treasures hid in the sand" (De 32:19) is supposed to refer to the abundance of the rich dyes afforded by the תכלת and other testaceous animals found in the sand, on the Phoenician coast, assigned to. Zebulon and Issachar (Targum of Jonathan b. Uziel, Walton, 4:387, and Gesenius, Thes. p. 1503). SEE BLUE.
5. The תִּנִּין -tannin (plur. תִּנִּינִים or תִּנִּינִם) must be carefully distinguished from תִּנִּים tannin', the plural of thee-unused word תִּן, a jackel, according to Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 1138. "The seamonsters," which are described by Jeremiah (La 4:3). as "suckling their young," used to he regarded as the mammiferous whales or other large cetacea (Calbnet by Taylor, " Fragments" on Natural History, No. 26). ' They are by Gesenius(1. c.) supposed to be rather תִּנִּים, jackals; this is the reading of some of the MSS. (Kaennicott, ii, 546), sand Gesenius accepts the Masoretic text as an Aramaic form of it. In Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2, the textual reading תִּנִּים, which is represented usually as an anomalous singular noun, should -no doubt be תִּנִּין the regular singular, which may well bear (what the other word could not) the 'suitable' sense of crocodile; thee MS. authority in favor of the latter word is overwhelming (Kennicott ii, 212). For a description of the תנין, SEE WHALE.
6. בּהֵמוֹת, Behemoth' (q.v.).
⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
7. לִויָתָן Leviathan. SEE CROCODILE.
8. "The great. fish," דָּג גָּדוֹל of Jon 1:17 (דָּגָה in 2:1), was probably some species of shark, such as the Zygaene malleus, or the Carcharias vulgaris (the white shark), therefore -strictly a fish. Of the same kind of huge fish, ἀνθρωποφάγοι, does Amos speak is prophecy, Am 9:3, "I will command the serpent from a the bottom of the sea, and he shall bite them" (Bochart, Hieroz. i, c. 40, 1. 40). The difficulty that in the Sept. of Jonah, and in the Greek Testament (Mt 12:40), κῆτος is the word by which the fish is designated, is removed by the fact, that, this Greek term does not specifically indicate whales only as the objection supposes, but any of the larger inhabitants of the deep. (Wesseling's Herodot. Fragm. de Incrementos Nili, p. 789, as quoted in Valpy's Stephani Thes. s.v. Κῆτος; here "Pisces," as well as "be/s-ceu 'qcehi bet ingenae-s, veluti crocodilus et hippopotamus." are included.) Accordingly κῆτος stands in the Sept., passim, for דָּג, 'as well as for תִּנִּין (see Schleusner, Lex. V. T. s.v. Κῆτος). Admiral Smyth, in the chapter on Ichthyology, in his Mediterranean, p. 196, says the white shark has been called "'Jonce piscis' from its transcendent claim "to have been the great fish that swallowed the prophet, since lie can readily engulf a man whole." For more on the subject of this fish, see Kitto, Bibl. Illustr. 6:399-404, and SEE JONAH.
9. Of Tobit's fish,. O.T. Fritzsche, in his commentary on the passage (Tobit 6:passim) enumerates nine or ten speculations by different writers. According to Bochart and Helvigius, the Silurus has the best claim. This the former describes as "being very large, of great strength and boldness, and ever ready to attack other animals, even men, an inhabitant of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris." C. H. Smith, in the first edition of Kitto's Cyclopedia. combats Bochart's conclusions, and suggests the Sicsar of the Indus, a, crocodile, probably of the genus Gavial, which grows to a great size, is, eaten, and has a gall bladder, still used to cure obstinate wounds and defluctions Glaire suggests the sturgeon, but this is more suitable to Northern rivers. Pennant mentions. the capture of one in the Esk weighing 464: pounds (British Zoology, iii, 127). See more in Bochart, Hieroz. v, 14; Glaire,' Introduction de lAncien. et du N.T. ii, 91 [ed. 3], Paris, 1862, and TOBIT.
10. If Dr. French and Mr. Skinner, in their Translation of the Psalms, are right in rendering Ps 104:26, "There swimmeth the nautilus and the whale" etc. (as if the sacred writer meant to indicate, a small, though conspicuous, as well as a large aquatic animal, as. equally the object of God's care), we have, in the אַנִיּוֹת, aniyoth', A. V. 's-ships, "an unexpected addition to our Scripture nomenclature of fishes, in what lord Byron calls
"The tender Nautiltis who steels his prow, The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea.--The Island,
In their note the translators say, "The Nautilus. This little creature floats at pleasure upon the surface of the sea. Its shell resembles the hull of a ship, whence it has its name." Mr. Thrupp accepts the new rendering as having "much apparent probability" (Introduction to the Psalms the Psalms, ii, 178).' Another recent expositor of the Psalms, J. Olshausen (Exeg. Handb. p. 402), remarks that "the introduction of ships amongst the living creatures of the sea has always presented an 'obstacle' to the understanding of the sentence. The paper nautilus (Argonauta) frequents the Mediterranean. The verb יהִלֵּכוּן, proceed, walk, very well describes the stately progress of the nautilus as it floats upon the wave. We may add that it gives greater fitness to the 27th verse, which at present is hardly compatible with the 25th and 26th, owing, to the intrusion of the clause, there go the ships. Replace this by the nastilus, and the coherence of the 27th verse with the two preceding is complete in all its terms.
11. Our last specific fish is rather suggested than named in Eze 29:4, where the prophet twice mentions "the fish of the rivers which cleave to the scales" [of the crocodile]. This description seems to identify this fish with the Echeveis remora, so remarkable for the adhesive or sucking disc which covers the upper part of the head, and enables it to adhere to the body of another fish or to the bottom of a vessel. (Its fabulous powers of being able even to arrest a vessel in her course are recorded by Pliny, Hist. Nat. 32:1; it is mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Assinm. ii, 14, ἰχδύδιόν τι ὅ καλοῦσί τινες ἐχεν῏ηιδα. It is also mentioned by Fonakal as seen at Gidda, and by Hassebquist at Alexandria). The lump-sucker (Cyclopterus lumpus) is furnished with ventral fins which unite beneath the body and form a concave disc, by which the fish can with ease adhere to stones or other bodies. Either in the remora, with its adhesive apparatus above, or in the lump-sucker with-a similar appendage below, or in both, we have in all probability the prophet's fishes which cleave to the monster of the Nile. The species of fishes known to the Hebrews, or at least to those who dwelt on the coast, were probably very numerous, because the usual current of the Mediterranean sets in, with a great depth of water, at the Straits. of Gibraltar, and passes eastward on the African side until the shoals of the delta of the -Nile begin to turn it towards the north; it continues in that direction belong the Syrian shores, and falls into a broken course, only when turning westward on the Cyprian and Cretan coasts. Every spring, with the sun's return towards the north, innumerable, troops of littoral species, having passed the winter in the offings of Western Africa, return northward for spawning, or are impelled in that direction by other unknown laws. A small part only ascend along the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal towards the British Channel, while the main bodies pass into the Mediterranean, follow the general current, and do not break into more scattered families until they heave swept round the shores of Palestine. Lists of species of the fish frequenting various parts of the Mediterranean may be found in Risso (Ich/ thyol. de Nice), who describes 315 species he had observed at Nice; and in Adm. Smytth's Mediterranean, where in the chapter on Ichthyology hue gives a list of about 300 fishes haunting the waters of Sicily, besides 240 crustacea, testacea, and mollusks. Admiral Smyth remarks generally of the Mediterranean fish, that, "though mostly handsomer than British fishes, they are, for the most part, not to be compared with them in flavor" (p. 192-209). Professor E. Forbes (in his Report on Lgean Inveslebrala) divides that part of the East Mediterranean, in which for many years he conducted his inquiries, into eight regions of depth, each characterized by its peculiar fauna. "Certain species," he says, "in each are found in no other; several are found in one region which do not range into the next- above, whilst they extend to that below, or vice versa. Certain species have their maximum of development in each zone, being most prolific in individuals at that zone in which is their maximum, and of which they may be regarded as especially characteristic. Mingled with these true natives are stragglers, owing their presence to the secondary influences which modify distribution." The Syrian waters are probably not less prolific. The coasts of Tyre and Sidon would produce at least as great a number. The name of the latter place, indeed, is derived from the Phoenician word fish (see Gesenius, s.v. צִידוֹן, Sidon: the modern name has the same meaning, Saida; Abulfar. Syria, p. 93. SEE SIDON), and it is the oldest fishing establishment for commercial purposes known in history. The Hebrews had a less perfect acquaintance with the species found in the Red Sea, whither, to a certain extent, the majority of fishes. found in the Indian Ocean resort. Besides these, in Egypt they had anciently eaten those of the Nile (for the fish of the Nile, sea. Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii, 119-121, and, more fully, Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iii, 58; v, 248-254); subsequently, those of the lake of Tiberias and of the rivers falling into the Jordan (Von Raumer, Palistina, p. 105, after Hasselquist, mentions the Sparus Gallilcus, a sort of bream the silurus and mugil; and Reuchlin, in Herzog after Dr. Barthe, adds the Labrus Nicloticusas inhabiting this lake, which Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 375, represents as abounding in fish of all kinds [comp. Joh 21:11, with Mt 14:17; Mt 15:34]. From the earliest times-so said the Rabbinical legends-this lake had-been so renowned in this respect [see Reland, p. 260, who quotes the Baba Bethra of the Babylonian Gemara], that one of the ten fundamental laws laid down by Joshua was, that any one might fish with a hook in the Sea of Galilee [see Lightfoot, Talm. Exercit. on Mt 4:8]. Two of the villages on the banks derived their name from their fisheries, the west and the east Bethsaida, "house of fish" [compare the modern name of Sidon just mentioned]. The numerous streams which flow into the Jordan are also described by Stanley as full of fish, especially the Jabbok, p. 323); and they may have been acquainted with species of other lakes, of the Orontes, and even of the Euphrates. The supply, however, of this article of food, which the Jewish people appear to have consumed largely, came chiefly from the Mediterranean. From Ne 13:16, we learn that the Phoenicians of Tyre actually resided in Jerusalem as dealers in fish, which must have led to an exchange of that commodity for corn and cattle. 'They must. have previously salted it (in which form it is termed מליח in the Talmud; Lightfoot on Mt 14:17): the existence of a regular fish-market is implied in the notice of the fish-gate, which was probably contiguous to it (2Ch 23:14; Ne 3:3; Ne 12:39; Zep 1:10). In addition to these sources, the reservoirs formed in the neighborhood of towns may have been stocked with fish (2Sa 2:13; 2Sa 4:12; Isa 7:3; Isa 22:9,11; Song 7:4, where, however, " fish" is interpolated in the A. V.). SEE FOOD. - The most nutritious and common of the fishes which must have filled the Jewish markets were genera of Percadem (perch tribes); Scicenids (much resembling the perches); and particularly the great tribe of the Scomberidce (mackerel), with its numerous genera and still more abundant species, frequenting the Mediterranean in prodigious numbers, and mostly excellent for the table; but being often without perceptible scales, they may have been of questionable use to the Hebrews. All the species resort to the deep seas, and foremost of them is the genus Thynnus, our tunny, a fish often- mentioned with honor by the ancients, from Aristotle downward; a specimen taken near Greenock in 1831 was nine feet in length. Its flesh is highly prized, and from its great solidity it partakes much of the character of meat. Although repeatedly taken on the English coast, it is really a native of the Mediterranean, where it abounds, not only in Sicilian waters but, in three or four species, in the Levant. The following complete the catalogue the Mugilidae family (the sea mullets, mugiles, being valuable in every part of the Mediterranean), the Labridce (or Wrasse of Pennant), and Cyprinidce (carps, particularly abundant in the fresh waters of Asia); after these may be ranged the genus Mormyrus, of which the' species, amounting to six or seven, are almost exclusively tenants of the Nile and the lake of Tiberias, and held among the most palatable fish which the fresh waters produce. Cat or sheat-fish (Si-slude) are a family of numerous genera, all of which, except the Loricarice, are destitute of a scaly covering, and. were consequently unclean to the- Hebrews; though several -of them were held by the ancient Gentile nations and by some of the modern in high estimation, such as the blackfish, probably the shilbeh (Silurus Shilbe' Niloticus) of the Nile, and others. Of salmons (Salmonidsce), the Myletes denstex or Hasselquist belongs to the most edible fishes of the Egyptian river; there were also Clupeidae.(herrings) and the Gadidae (or cod), these last being present about Tymre; Pleuronectes (or flatfish) are found off the Egyptian coasts, and eel-shaped genera are bred abundantly in the lakes of the Delta. A comparison of this list with the enumeration of the ancient Egyptian fish given by Strabo (xvii, 823), or by Sir G. Wilkinson in his Ancient Egyptians (iii, 58), will show us that some of the fish which have to the present day preserved their excellent character as wholesome food (such as some species of the Percadce [e.g. the "gisher"], and the Labridae [e.g. the " bultit"], and the Cyprinidt [e.g. thee "benni;" " the carpe is a dayntous fisshe," wrote old Leonard Maschal in 1514, when he introduced the fish into England]), were the identical diet which the children of Israel " remembered" so invidiously at Taberah, when they ungratefully loathed the manna (Nu 11:5). Finally, there are the cartilaginous orders, where we find the file-fish (genus Balistes), having a species (B. vetusa) in the waters of the Nile; and true chondropterygians, containing the sharks, numerous in genera and species, both in the Mediterranean and Red Sea. We notice only Carcharus Lamia, the white or raging shark, often -found of enormous size off Alexandria, and always attended by several pilot-fish (Naucrates), and the saw-fish (Pristis antiquorum), most dreaded by the pearl-fishers in the Persian Gulf, and which has been seen in the Red Sea pursuing its prey even into the surf, with such force and velocity that, on one occasion, half of a fish cut asunder by the saw flew on shore at the feet of an officer while employed in the surveying service. On rays we shall only add that most of the genera are represented by species in either sea, and in particular the sting rays (Trigon) and electric rays (Torpedo), with which we close our general review of the class, although many interesting remarks might be subjoined, all tending to clear up existing misconceptions respecting fishes in general-such as that cetaceans, or the whale tribe, belong to them; and the misapplication of the term when tortoises and oysters are denominated fish; for the error is general, and the Arabs ven include lizards in the appellation. SEE ZOOLOGY.
The extreme value of fish as an article of food [when cooked, or otherwise prepared as a relish, ὀψασιον, lit. sauce] (our Lord seems to recognise this as sharing with bread the claim to be considered as a prime necessary of life, see Mt 7:9-10) imparted to the destruction (fish the character of a divine judgment (see Isa 1; Isa 2; Ho 4:3; Zep 1:3; compare with Ex 7:18,21; Ps 105:29;
and Isa 19:8). This would especially be the case in Egypt, where the abundance of fish in the Nile, and the lakes and canals (Strabo, 17:p. 823; Diod. i, 36, 43, 52; Herod. ii, 13, 149), rendered it one of the staple commodities of food (Nu 11:5; comp. Wilkinson, iii, 62). How fish is destroyed, largely in the way of God's judgment, is stated by Dr. E. Pococke on Ho 4:3, where he collects many conjectures of the learned, to which may be added the more obvious cause of death by disease, such as the case mentioned by Welsted (Travels in Arabia, i, 310) of the destruction of vast quantities of the fish of Oman by an epidemic, which recurred nearly every five years. St. John (Travels in Valley of the Nile, ii, 246) describes a vast destruction offish from cold. Aristotle (Hist. Anim. 8:19) mentions certain symptoms of disease among fish as known to skilful fishermen; but he denies that epidemics such as affect men and cattle fall upon them. In the next section he mentions the mullein plant (verbascum, πλόμος) as poisonous to fresh-water and other fish. Certain waters are well known to be fatal to life. The instance of the Dead Sea, the very contrast of the other Jordan lakes so full of life, is well described by Schwarz (Descripire Geography of Palestine, p. 41-45), and by Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 290-294), and more fully by De Saulcy (Dead Sea, passim). Contrast the present condition of this Sea of Death with the vitality which is predicted of it in the vision of Ezekiel (Eze 47:9-10). Its healed waters and renovated fish "exceeding many," and "the fishers which shall stand on it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim," and "the places on its coast to spread forth nets"-all these features are in vivid opposition to the present condition of " the Asphaltic lake." Of like remarkable import is 2 Esdr. v, 7, where the writer, among the signs of the times to come, predicts, "The Sodomitish sea shall cast out fish." For ancient testimonies of the death which reigns over this lake, see St. Jerome on Ezekiel, lib. xiv., Tacitus, Hist. v, 6; Did. Sic. ii, 48, and 19:98; and the Nubian Geographer, iii, .5, as quoted by Bochart, Hieroz. i, 40. But there are other waters equally fatal to fish life, though less known, such as the lake called Canoudan .(Avicenna, i. q. ἄγονον, without life.), in Armenia, .and that which AElian (Hist. Animal. iii, 38) mentions ἡ δὲ ἐν Φενεῷ λίμνη ἰχθὑων ἄγανός ἐστιν). This epithet ἄγονος is applied to the Dead Sea itself by Josephus, War, v, 4 (see Bochart, Hieroz. i, 40). SEE DEAD SEA.
