Ps 83:13, translated "rolling thing" in Isa 17:13. Mr. Thomson, for many years a missionary in Syria, thinks the wild artichoke may here be referred to. This plant sends out numerous stalks or branches of equal length in all directions, forming a globe a foot in diameter. These globes become rigid and light as a feather in autumn, and thousands of them fly rolling and bounding over the plains, the sport of every wind. This "rolling thing" furnishes the modern Arabs with a current proverb and a curse.

(Heb galgal; rendered "wheel" in Ps 83:13, and "a rolling thing" in Isa 17:13; R.V. in both, "whirling dust"). This word has been supposed to mean the wild artichoke, which assumes the form of a globe, and in autumn breaks away from its roots, and is rolled about by the wind in some places in great numbers.

The various parts of a cart or chariot wheel are enumerated in connexion with the bronze wheels of Solomon's lavers (1Ki 7:30,32 f.). In RV v. 33 reads: 'And the work of the wheels was like the work of a chariot wheel: their axletrees, and their felloes, and their spokes, and their naves were all molten' (cf. AV). In carts and chariots the essential parts were, of course, of wood. The felloes were made in segments dowelled together. For illustt. see Wilkinson. Anc. Egy. i, 234 ff. The finest specimen of a Roman chariot wheel as yet found has the felloe, 'which is formed of a single piece of wood bent,' and the nave shod with iron, the latter being also 'bushed with iron' (Scott, Hist. Rev., Oct. 1905, p. 123, with illust.). For the potter's wheel, see Potter. Wells and cisterns were also furnished with wheels, over which the rope passed for drawing up the water-bucket (Ec 12:6). See also Cart, Chariot.

A. R. S. Kennedy.