since בריח beside נחשׁ may naturally be assumed to be an attributive word referring to the motion or form of the serpent. Accordingly, Isa 27:1, ὄφιν φείγοντα is more correct, where the Syr. version is חויא חרמנא, the fierce serpent, which is devoid of support in the language; in the passage before us the Syr. also has חויא דערק, the fleeing serpent, but this translation does not satisfy the more neuter signification of the adjective. Aquila in Isaiah translates ὄφιν μόχλον, as Jerome translates the same passage serpentem vectem (whereas he translates coluber tortuosus in our passage), as though it were בּריח; Symm. is better, and without doubt a substantially similar thought, ὄφιν συγκλείοντα, the serpent that joins by a bolt, which agrees with the traditional Jewish explanation, for the dragon in Aben-Ezra and Kimchi (in Lex.) - after the example of the learned Babylonian teacher of astronomy, Mar-Samuel (died 257), who says of himself that the paths of the heavens are as familiar to him as the places of Nehardea[1] - is called נחשׁ עקלתון, because it is as though it were wounded, and בריח, because it forms a bar (מבריח) from one end of the sky to the other; or as Sabbatai Donolo (about 94), the Italian astronomer,[2] expresses it: “When God created the two lights (the sun and moon) and the five stars (planets) and the twelve מזלור (the constellations of the Zodiac), He also created the תלי (dragon), to unite these heavenly bodies as by a weaver's beam (מנור אורגים), and made it stretch itself on the firmament from one end to another as a bar (כבריח), like a wounded serpent furnished with the head and tail.” By this explanation בּריח is either taken directly as בּריח, vectis, in which signification it does not, however, occur elsewhere, or the signification transversus (transversarius) is
Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1498
This page needs to be proofread.
