Fox

(Heb. shu'al, a name derived from its digging or burrowing under ground), the Vulpes thaleb, or Syrian fox, the only species of this animal indigenous to Palestine. It burrows, is silent and solitary in its habits, is destructive to vineyards, being a plunderer of ripe grapes (Cant. 2:15). The Vulpes Niloticus, or Egyptian dog-fox, and the Vulpes vulgaris, or common fox, are also found in Palestine. The proverbial cunning of the fox is alluded to in Ezek. 13:4, and in Luke 13:32, where our Lord calls Herod "that fox." In Judg. 15:4, 5, the reference is in all probability to the jackal. The Hebrew word shu'al_ through the Persian _schagal becomes our jackal (Canis aureus), so that the word may bear that signification here. The reasons for preferring the rendering "jackal" are (1) that it is more easily caught than the fox; (2) that the fox is shy and suspicious, and flies mankind, while the jackal does not; and (3) that foxes are difficult, jackals comparatively easy, to treat in the way here described. Jackals hunt in large numbers, and are still very numerous in Southern Palestine.

שועל, Judges xv, 4; Nehemiah iv, 3; xi, 27; Psalm lxiii, 10; Cant. ii, 15; Lam. v, 11; Ezek. xiii, 4; Matt. viii, 20; Luke ix, 58; xiii, 32. Parkhurst observes that this is the name of an animal, probably so called from its burrowing, or making holes in the earth to hide himself or dwell in. The LXX render it by ἀλώπηξ, the Vulgate, _vulpes_, and our English version, _fox_. It is recorded, in Judges xv, 4, 5, that “Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails; and when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.” Dr. Shaw thinks jackals to be the animals here intended; observing, that “as these are creatures by far the most common and familiar, as well as the most numerous of any in the eastern countries, we may well perceive the great possibility there was for Samson to take, or cause to be taken, three hundred of them. The fox, properly so called,” he adds, “is rarely to be met with, neither is it gregarious.” So Hasselquist remarks: “Jackals are found in great numbers about Gaza; and, from their gregarious nature, it is much more probable that Samson should have caught three hundred of them, than of the solitary quadruped, the fox.” 2. At the feast of Ceres, the goddess of corn, celebrated annually at Rome about the middle of April, there was the observance of this custom, to fix burning torches to the tails of a number of foxes, and to let them run through the circus till they were burnt to death. This was done in revenge upon that species of animals, for having once burnt up the fields of corn. The reason, indeed, assigned by Ovid, is too frivolous an origin for so solemn a rite; and the time of its celebration, the seventeenth of April, it seems, was not harvest time, when the fields were covered with corn, _vestitos messibus agros_; for the middle of April was seed time in Italy, as appears from Virgil’s Georgics. Hence we must infer that this rite must have taken its rise from some other event than that by which Ovid accounted for it; and Samson’s foxes are a probable origin of it. The time agrees exactly, as may be collected from several passages of Scripture. For instance: from the book of Exodus we learn, that before the passover, that is, before the fourteenth day of the month Abib, or March, barley in Egypt was in the ear, Exod. xii, 18; xiii, 4. And in chapter ix, 31, 32, it is said, that the wheat at that time was not grown up. Barley harvest, then, in Egypt, and so in the country of the Philistines, which bordered upon it, must have fallen about the middle of March. Wheat harvest, according to Pliny, was a month later: “_In Egypto hordeum sexto a satu mense, frumenta septimo metuntur._” [In Egypt barley is reaped in the sixth month from the time of its being sown, wheat in the seventh.] Therefore wheat harvest happened about the middle of April; the very time in which the burning of foxes was observed at Rome. It is certain that the Romans borrowed many of their rites and ceremonies, both serious and ludicrous, from foreign nations; and Egypt and Phenicia furnished them with more perhaps than any other country. From one of these the Romans might either receive this rite immediately, or through the hands of their neighbours, the Carthaginians, who were a colony of Phenicians; and so its true origin may be referred back to the story which we have been considering. Bochart has made it probable that the איים spoken of in Isaiah xiii, 22; xxxiv, 14; and Jer. 1, 39, rendered by our translators “the beasts of the islands,” an appellation very vague and indeterminate, are _jackals_; and that the θωὲς of the Greeks, and the _beni ani_ of the Arabians are the same animal; and though he takes that to have been their specific name, yet he thinks, that, from their great resemblance to a fox, they might be comprehended under the Hebrew name of a fox, _shual_; which is indeed almost the same with _sciagal sciugal_, the Persian names of the jackal. Scaliger and Olearius, quoted by Bochart, expressly call the jackal a fox; and Mr. Sandys speaks of it in the same manner: “The jackals, in my opinion, are no other than foxes, whereof an infinite number,” &c. Hasselquist calls it the little eastern fox; and Kæmpfer says that it might not be improperly called the wolf-fox. It is therefore very conceivable that the ancients might comprehend this animal under the general name of fox. 3. To give an idea of his own extreme poverty, the Lord Jesus says, Luke ix, 58, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” And he calls Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, a fox, Luke xiii, 32; thereby signifying his craft, and the refinements of his policy. In illustration of the pertinency of this allusion, we may quote a remark of Busbequius: “I heard a mighty noise, as if it had been of men who jeered and mocked us. I asked what was the matter; and was answered, ‘Only the howlings of certain beasts which the Turks call, _ciagals_, or _jackals_.’ They are a sort of wolves, somewhat bigger than foxes, but less than common wolves, yet as greedy and devouring. They go in flocks, and seldom hurt man or beast; but get their food more by craft and stealth than by open force. Thence it is that the Turks call subtle and crafty persons by the metaphorical name of _ciagals_.”