d

the feminine form of the verb. An instance of its connection with the feminine form, and by consequence, of its reference to the female bear, occurs in the passage of Scripture which mentions the destruction of the children of Bethel by two bears. It may perhaps be replied, that the masculine form of the adjective determines the gender and meaning of the substantive; but this is not always the case in Hebrew. It has been justly observed, that the adjective" bereaved, may be expressed in the masculine form, in conformity to the termination of the noun with which it is connected, rather than to indicate the sex of the animal." But a more satisfactory reason may perhaps be assigned: The Hebrews often connect a masculine verb or adjective with a feminine noun, when they mean to indicate something peculiarly excellent, or to increase the force and significancy of the clause, and the reverse; the adjective here may therefore be put in the masculine form, to signify the total loss which the bear had suffered, and by consequence, that she was wrought up to the highest paroxysm of rage and madness. In the same manner would Jehovah, provoked in the highest degree by the total apostacy of the ten tribes to the service of dumb idols, meet them in the severest calamities which his righteous indignation inflicts upon a guilty and impenitent people.

We have not perhaps in the records of history, a more terrible illustration of the dreadful ferocity which marks the character of the she-bear, than was exhibited in the neighbourhood of Bethel. The prophet Elisha, we are told, after the ascension of his master into heaven, and having received a double portion of his spirit, was returning from Jericho to that place. "And as he was going d 2 Kings ii, 23, 34.

up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."

These furious animals were she-bears, which, it is pro bable, had been just deprived of their young; and now following the impulse of their outraged feelings, they rushed from the wood to revenge the loss. But it is evident their native ferocity was overruled and directed by divine providence, to execute the dreadful sentence pronounced by the prophet in his name. They must, therefore, be considered as the ministers of God, the Judge of all the earth, commissioned to punish the idolatrous inhabitants of Be thel and their profligate offspring, who probably acted on this occasion with their concurrence, if not by their com mand. He punished in a similar way the Heathen colonies planted by the king of Assyria in the cities of Samaria, after the expulsion of the ten tribes: "They feared not the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them." When he punished the youths of Be thel (for so the phrase little children signifies in Hebrew)," by directing against them the rage of the she-bears, he only did what Moses had long before predicted, and left on record for their warning: "And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children." Bethel had been long a principal seat of idolatry, and its attendant vices; and to all their ag

f

e 2 Kings xvii, 25.

f Lev. xxvi, 21, 22.

gravated crimes, its inhabitants now added rude and impious mockery of a person whom they knew to be a prophet of the Lord, reviling with blasphemous tongues, the Lord God of Elijah, and his now glorified servant. Baldness was reckoned a very great deformity in the east; and to be reproached with it, one of the grossest insults an oriental could receive. Cæsar, who was bald, could not bear to hear it mentioned in jest. It is one of the marks of disgrace which Homer fixes upon. Thersites, that he had only a few straggling hairs on his pyramidal head.h Their crime, therefore, justly merited the severest punishment.i

The only other passage of Scripture which takes notice of the bear, occurs in the book of Daniel: "And behold, another beast, a second like to a bear, and it raised up it self on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it; and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh." It has been satisfactorily proved by the best writers on the subject, that the vision refers to the four great monarchies, the Babylonian, the MedoPersian, the Macedonian or Grecian, and the Roman; and that the second beast, which was like to a bear, symbolizes the empire of the Medes and Persians. All the four monarchies are represented by beasts of prey, to intimate their agreement in the general character of fierceness and rapacity; and by beasts of different species, to intimate the existence of important differences in their character and mode of operation. The Babylonish empire is

& Sueton. in Jul. cap. 45.

h Iliad, lib. ii, 1. 219.

i See an excellent reply to the cavils of unbelievers against the prophet and his God, in the Christ. Mag. Sac. Zool. vol. vi, p. 415.

j Dan. vii, 5.

symbolized by a lion with eagle's wings, because it was the first and noblest kingdom upon earth; it was strong and fierce as a lion; it was swift and rapid in its movements, as a lion with eagle's wings; rising in a few years, under the conduct of Nebuchadnezzar, to the highest pinnacle of power and greatness. The third kingdom is represented by another beast, "like a leopard which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given unto it." This is the Grecian monarchy; the distinguishing characters of which, are great variety of disposition and manners, undaunted boldness, and rapidity of conquest, never before or since exemplified in the history of nations. The fourth beast was so great and horrible, that no adequate name could be found for it; this nondescript was the symbol of the Roman empire, which differed from all others in the form of its government, in strength, in power, in greatness, in length of duration, and in extent of dominion. The Persian monarchy, symbolized by the bear, has also certain specific differences, which are to be learned from the na tural history of that animal. Cruel and rapacious as the others, the bear is inferior in strength and courage to the lion, and although slower in its motions, more uniform in its appearance and steady in its purpose, than the leopard. Such was the empire of the Medes and Persians: weaker and less warlike than the Babylonian, whose symbol is the lion; but less various in its principles of government, in the forms which it assumed, in the customs and manners of the nations which composed it, and less rapid in its conquests, than the Macedonian, symbolized by the spotted leopard, one of the most rapid and impetuous animals that traverse the desert.

But if the bear is inferior to the lion and the leopard, in strength, in courage, and in swiftness, it surpasses them in ferocious cruelty and insatiable voracity; it thirsts for blood and riots in carnage; and such was the empire of the Medes and Persians. They are stigmatized by ancient historians, as the greatest robbers and spoilers that ever oppressed the nations. The symbol of this all devouring people, is accordingly represented as having "three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it," in the very act of devouring three weaker animals which it had seized, that is, of oppressing the kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, which it conquered. And besides, to denote its rapaciousness and cruelty, it is added in the vision, that "they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh."

The fourth empire is symbolized by "a dreadful and terrible beast," for which, the prophet found no name in the kingdom of nature. It resembled the fabulous monsters, which poetic imagination sometimes delights to pourtray; for, in the book of Revelation, John describes it as compounded of the three which preceded it: "The beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." It possessed all the qualities which render beasts of a terror to man and other animals; the swiftness and cunning of the leopard, the ferocity of the bear, and the boldness and strength of the lion. The Roman empire which it symbolized, resembled no state of society known among men; it displayed, in its character and proceedings, the vigour and courage of the Babylonians, the various policy and alacrity of the Greeks, and the unchanging firmness

Rev. xiii, 2. Bochart. Hieroz. lib. iii, p. 820.

prey