The Hebrew word Debôrah—The Honey Bee of Palestine—Abundance of Bees in the Holy Land—Habitations of the wild Bee—Hissing for the Bee—Bees in dead carcases—The honey of Scripture—Domesticated Bees and their hives—Stores of wild honey—The story of Jonathan—The Crusaders and the honey—Butter and honey—Oriental sweetmeats—The Dibs, or grape-honey, and mode of preparation—Wax, its use as a metaphor.
PASSING for the moment the order of insects called Neuroptera, which may possibly be represented in the Scriptural writings by the Termites, which would be classed with the ants, we come to the vast order of Hymenoptera, of which we find several representatives. Beginning with that which is most familiar to us, we will take the BEE, an insect which is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, and to which indirect allusion is made in many passages, such as those which mention honey, honeycomb, and wax.
FORTUNATELY, there is no doubt about the rendering of the Hebrew word debôrah, which has always been acknowledged to be rightly translated as “Bee." There has, however, been a difference of opinion as to the derivation of the word, some Hebraists thinking that it is derived from a word which signifies departure, or going forth, in allusion to its habit of swarming, while others derive it from the Hebrew debôrah, a word which signifies speech, and is appropriate to the Bee on account of the varied sounds of its hum, which were supposed to be the language of the insect.
The Honey Bee is exceedingly plentiful in Palestine, and in some parts of the country multiplying to such an extent that the precipitous ravines in which it takes up its residence are almost impassable by human beings, so jealous are the Bees of their domains. Although the Bee is not exactly the same species as that of our own country, being the Banded Bee (Apis fasciata), and not the Apis mellifica, the two insects very much resemble each other in shape, color, and habits. Both of them share the instinctive dislike of strangers and jealousy of intrusion, and the Banded Bee of Palestine has as great an objection to intrusion as its congener of England.
Several allusions are made in the Scriptures to this trait in the character of the Bee. See, for example, Deut. 1:4444And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah. (Deuteronomy 1:44): “And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, carne out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah." All those who have had the misfortune to offend Bees will recognize the truth of this metaphor, the Amorites swarming out of the mountain like wild Bees out of the rocky clefts which serve them as hives, and chasing the intruder fairly out of their domains.
A similar metaphor is employed in the Psalms:
“They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about; but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
“They compassed me about like bees, they are quick as the tire of thorns, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.”
There is another passage in which the Bee is mentioned in the light of an enemy: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
“And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes" (Isa. 7:18,1918And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes. (Isaiah 7:18‑19)). Some commentators have thought that the word which is translated as "Bee" may in this case refer to some noxious fly, which, although it is not a Bee, and does not even belong to the same order of insects, has a sufficiently Bee-like appearance to cause it to be classed among the Bees by the non-zoological Orientals. The context, however, sets the question at rest; for the allusions to the resting of the insect in the holes of the rock, upon the thorns, and on the bushes, clearly refers to the mode in which the Honey Bee throws off its swarms.
The custom of swarming is mentioned in one of the earlier books of Scripture. The reader will remember that, after Samson had killed the lion which met him on the way, he left the carcass alone. The various carnivorous beasts and birds at once discover such a banquet, and in a very short time the body of a dead animal is reduced to a hollow skeleton, partially or entirely covered with skin, the rays of the sun drying and hardening the skin until it is like horn.
In exceptionally hot weather, the same result occurs even in this country. Some years before this account was written there was a very hot and dry summer, and a great mortality took place among the sheep. So many indeed died that at last their owners merely flayed them, and left their bodies to perish. One of the dead sheep had been thrown into a rather thick copse, and had fallen in a spot where it was sheltered from the wind, and yet exposed to the fierce heat of the summer's sun. The consequence was that in a few days it was reduced to a mere shell. The heat hardened and dried the external layer of flesh so that not even the carnivorous beetles could penetrate it, while the whole of the interior dissolved into a semi-putrescent state, and was rapidly devoured by myriads of blue-bottles and other larvae.
It was so thoroughly dried that scarcely any evil odor clung to it, and as soon as I came across it the story of Samson received a simple elucidation. In the hotter Eastern lands, the whole process would have been more rapid and more complete, and the skeleton of the lion, with the hard and horny skin strained over it, would afford exactly the habitation of which a wandering swarm of Bees would Lake advantage. At the present day swarms of wild Bees often make their habitations within the desiccated bodies of dead camels that have perished on the way.
As to the expression “hissing" for the Bee, the reader must bear in mind that a sharp, short hiss is the ordinary call in Palestine, when one person desires to attract the attention of another. A similar sound, which may perhaps be expressed by the Letters tst, prevails on the Continent at the present day. Signor Pierotti remarks that the inhabitants of Palestine are even now accustomed to summon Bees by a sort of hissing sound.
Whether the honey spoken of in the Scriptures was obtained from wild or domesticated Bees is not very certain, but, as the manners of the East are much the same now as they were three thousand years ago, it is probable that Bees were kept then as they are now. The hives are not in the least like ours, but are cylindrical vases of coarse earthenware, laid horizontally, much like the bark hives employed in many parts of Southern Africa.
In some places the hives are actually built into the walls of the houses, the closed end of the cylinder projecting into the interior, while an entrance is made for the Bees in the other end, so that the insects have no business in the house. When the inhabitants wish to take the honey, they resort to the operation which is technically termed “driving “by bee masters.
They gently tap the end within the house, and continue the tapping until the Bees, annoyed by the sound, have left the hive. They then take out the circular door that closes the end of the hive, remove as much comb as they want, carefully put back those portions which contain grubs and bee-bread, and replace the door, when the Bees soon return and fill up the gaps in the combs. As to the wasteful, cruel, and foolish custom of “burning" the Bees, the Orientals never think of practicing it.
In many places the culture of Bees is carried out to a very great extent, numbers of the earthenware cylinders being piled on one another, and a quantity of mud thrown over them in order to defend them from the rays of the sun, which would soon melt the wax of the combs.
In consequence of the geographical characteristics of the Holy Land, which supplies not only convenient receptacles for the Bees in the rocks, but abundance of thyme and similar plants, vast stores of bee-comb are to be found in the cliffs, and form no small part of the wealth of the people.
Reference to this kind of property is made by the Prophet Jeremiah. When Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had treacherously killed Gedaliah and others, ten men tried to propitiate him by a bribe: Slay us not, for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, of barley, and of oil, and of honey" (chap. 41:8). References to the wild honey are frequent in the Scriptures. For example, in the magnificent song of Moses the Lord is said to have made Israel to “suck honey out of the rock “(Deut. 32:1313He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; (Deuteronomy 32:13)). See also Psa. 81:1616He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. (Psalm 81:16): "He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.”
The abundance of wild honey is shown by the memorable events recorded in 1 Sam. 14 Saul had prohibited all the people from eating until the evening. Jonathan, who had not heard the prohibition, was faint and weary, and, seeing honey dripping on the ground from the abundance and weight of the comb, he took it up on the end of his staff, and ate sufficient to restore his strength.
Thus, if we refer again to the history of John the Baptist and his food, we shall find that he was in no danger of starving for want of nourishment, the Bees breeding abundantly in the desert places he frequented, and affording him a plentiful supply of the very material which was needed to correct the deficiencies of the dried locusts which he used instead of bread.
The expression “a land flowing with milk and honey has become proverbial as a metaphor expressive of plenty. Those to whom the words were spoken understood it as something more than a metaphor. In the work to which reference has already been made Signor Pierotti writes as follows:—" Let us now see how far the land could be said to flow with milk and honey during the latter part of its history and at the present day.
“We find that honey was abundant in the time of the Crusades, for the English, who followed Edward I. to Palestine, died in great numbers from the excessive heat, and from eating too much fruit and honey. (See M. Sanutus, Liber secretorum fidelium Crucis,' lib. 3. p. 12.)
“At the present day, after traversing the country in every direction, I am able to affirm that in the south-east and northeast, where the ancient customs of the patriarchs are most fully preserved, and the effects of civilization have been felt least, milk and honey may still be said to flow, as they from a portion of every meal, and may even be more abundant than water, which fails occasionally in the heat of summer.... I have often eaten of the comb, which I found very good and of delicious fragrance.”
A reference to sickness occasioned by eating too much honey occurs in Prov. 25:1616Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. (Proverbs 25:16): “Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it." A similar warning is given in verse 27: "It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory.”
So plentiful indeed was the wild honey that it was exported to other countries, and in the palmy days of Israel formed part of a regular trade with Tire. See Ezek. 27:1717Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. (Ezekiel 27:17): "Judah and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.”
In one or two passages honey is mentioned as being eaten with butter. (See, for example, 2 Sam. 17:2929And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness. (2 Samuel 17:29).) When David and his followers were wearied at Mahanaim, the people brought presents to him, among which are specially mentioned butter and honey.
Then there is the familiar prophecy, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good." The same image is repeated in the same chapter: "And it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land " (ver. 22).
This mixture is at the present day a favorite one. All Orientals are fond of sweets, and in the composition of many of their favorite sweetmeats use honey instead of sugar. But an extemporized sweetmeat is often made by mixing together honey and butter, and eating it without further preparation.
IT is right to mention here that there is a substance which is sometimes called honey, but which is not made by Bees. This is still used in Palestine under the name of “dibs," a word which is almost identical with the Hebrew d'bash. A very excellent account of this preparation is given by Mr. Urquhart in his "Lebanon." “The dibs, the honey of Scripture, which Jacob sent to Joseph is the inspissated juice of the grape. It is of two sorts: one dark and liquid, resembling molasses—this is the racon; the other is thick, and of a yellow brown, and is called dibs (jibes). In every village there is an establishment for making it, some of them bearing marks of great antiquity. There are vats for pressing, and troughs cut in the rock for holding the juice, and a furnace for boiling it.
“The grapes are not trodden by the feet, but laid in a heap and pressed by a beam, of which one end is fixed in the wall, and a heavy stone attached to the other, as the oil seems anciently to have been expressed, judging from the relics I observed near Tire. The juice is then boiled in the iron pan for an hour, then poured back into the trough. After it has cooled it is again returned into the pan and boiled—if for the racon for three hours, if for the jibes four.
“The process is thus complete for the first; the second is still liquid, and is conveyed home, where, during a month, it is daily for an hour turned or beaten with a fresh branch of fig-tree, or botun. This property of the fig-tree is curious... The racon takes four okes of grapes to make one oke; the jibes five. The first is worth forty paras, and the second sixty.”
THE Hebrew word donag, which has been rightly interpreted as wax, occurs very seldom in the Old Testament. No mention is made of any use to which it was put, and in every instance it is employed simply as a metaphor.
Three examples occur in the Psalms: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels" (Psa. 22:1414I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. (Psalm 22:14)).
The word occurs again in Psa. 68:22As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. (Psalm 68:2): "As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." It occurs for the third time in Psa. 97:55The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. (Psalm 97:5): "The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.”
The Prophet Micah uses a similar image: “Behold the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.
“And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place." (1:3, 4.)
The Bee represented on page 606 is the common Bee of Palestine, Apis fasciata. The lowest figure in the comer, with a long body and shut wings, is the queen. The central figure represents the drone, conspicuous by means of his large eyes, that almost join each other at the top of the head, and for his thicker and stouter body, while the third figure represents the worker Bee. Near them is shown the entrance to one of the natural hives which are so plentiful in the Holy Land, and are made in the "clefts of the rocks." A number of Bees are shown issuing from the hole.