the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Bee
Smith's Bible Dictionary
or Bee. (Hebrew, deborah). Deuteronomy 1:44; Judges 14:8; Psalms 118:12; Isaiah 7:18. Bees abounded in Palestine, honey being a common article of food, Psalms 81:16, and was often found in the clefts of rocks and in hollow trees. 1 Samuel 14:25; 1 Samuel 14:27. English naturalists know little of the species of bees that are found in Palestine, but are inclined to believe that the honey-bee of Palestine is distinct from the honey-bee (Apis mellifica) of this country.
The passage in Isaiah 7:18 refers "to the custom of the people in the East of calling attention to any one by a significant hiss or rather hist." We read, Judges 14:8, that "after a time," probably many days, Samson returned to the carcass of the lion he had slain, and saw bees and honey therein.
"If any one here represents, to himself, a corrupt and putrid carcass, the occurrence ceases to have any true similitude, for it is well known that, in these countries, at certain seasons of the year, the heat will, in the course of twenty-four hours, completely dry up the moisture of dead camels, and that, without their undergoing decomposition, their bodies long remain like mummies, unaltered and entirely free from offensive odor." - Edmann.
These files are public domain.
Smith, William, Dr. Entry for 'Bee'. Smith's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/sbd/b/bee.html. 1901.
