In Le 11:30, is probably a sort of lizard; and in Ps 58:8, the common slug or snail without a shell, which "melteth" away by depositing its slime wherever it passes.

(1.) Heb homit, among the unclean creeping things (Le 11:30). This was probably the sand-lizard, of which there are many species in the wilderness of Judea and the Sinai peninsula.

(2.) Heb shablul (Ps 58:8), the snail or slug proper. Tristram explains the allusions of this passage by a reference to the heat and drought by which the moisture of the snail is evaporated. "We find," he says, "in all parts of the Holy Land myriads of snail-shells in fissures still adhering by the calcareous exudation round their orifice to the surface of the rock, but the animal of which is utterly shrivelled and wasted, 'melted away.'"

chomet (Le 11:30). Rather "a lizard." Some think the Stellio lacerta. The Chaldee means "to bow down"; the Muslims kill it, as though it mimicked them at prayers. The shablul in Ps 58:8 is a "snail" or 'slug" (limax), which delights in the damp night; but in the hot sunshine, as it crawls over a dry surface and moistens the way with its secretion, its moisture melts away.

l. ch

In Le 11:30 it is supposed that the word chomet refers to some kind of lizard: the R.V. has 'sand-lizard.' In Ps 58:8 the word is shablul, of which it says it 'melteth.' It was erroneously supposed by the Jews that by the slime which a snail leaves on its trail it gradually wasted away. The passage simply means that when dead the snail seems to melt entirely away: it is used as a symbol of the wicked passing away.

Snail.

1. The Hebrew word shablul occurs only in

Ps 58:8

The rendering of the Authorized Version is probably correct. The term would denote either a limax or a helix, which are particularly noticeable for the slimy track they leave behind them, by which they seem to waste themselves away. To this, or to the fact that many of them are shrivelled up among the rocks in the long heat of the summer, the psalmist refers.

2. The Hebrew word chomet occurs only as the name of some unclean animal in

Le 11:30

Perhaps some kind of lizard may be intended.