the crocodile. Thus it has been broadly
asserted that "the original mythical signification of the monsters
_tehom_, _livy[=a]th[=a]n_, _tannim_, _rahab_, is unmistakably evident."

Of these names the first signifies the world of waters; the second and
third real aquatic animals; and the last, "the proud one," is simply an
epithet of Egypt, applied to the crocodile as the representation of the
kingdom. There is no more myth in setting forth Egypt by the crocodile
or leviathan than in setting forth Great Britain by the lion, or Russia
by the bear.

The Hebrews in setting forth their enemies by crocodile and other
ferocious reptiles were not describing any imaginary monsters of the
primaeval chaos, but real oppressors. The Egyptian, with his "house of
bondage," the Assyrian, "which smote with a rod," the Chaldean who made
havoc of Israel altogether, were not dreams. And in beseeching God to
deliver them from their latest oppressor the Hebrews naturally recalled,
not some idle tale of the fabulous achievements of Babylonian deities,
but the actual deliverance God had wrought for them at the Red Sea.
There the Egyptian crocodile had been made "meat to the people
inhabiting the wilderness" when the corpses of Pharaoh's bodyguard, cast
up on the shore, supplied the children of Israel with the weapons and
armour of which they stood in need. So in the day of their utter
distress they could still cry in faith and hope--

"Yet God is my King of old,
Working salvation in the midst of the earth.
Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength:
Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,
And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood:
Thou driedst up mighty rivers.
The day is Thine, the night also is Thine:
Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth:
Thou hast made summer and winter."

FOOTNOTES:

[209:1] P. H. Gosse, in the _Imperial Bible-Dictionary_.

CHAPTER VI

THE PLEIADES

The translators of the Bible, from time to time, find themselves in a
difficulty as to the correct rendering of certain words in the original.
This is especially the case with the names of plants and animals. Some
sort of clue may be given by the context, as, for instance, if the
region is mentioned in which a