Flea

David at the cave of Adullam thus addressed his persecutor Saul (1 Sam. 24:14): "After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea?" He thus speaks of himself as the poor, contemptible object of the monarch's pursuit, a "worthy object truly for an expedition of the king of Israel with his picked troops!" This insect is in Eastern language the popular emblem of insignificance. In 1 Sam. 26:20 the LXX. read "come out to seek my life" instead of "to seek a flea."

פרעש, 1 Sam. xxiv, 14; xxvi, 20. The LXX, and another Greek version in the _Hexapla_, render it ψύλλον, and the Vulgate _pulex_. It seems, says Mr. Parkhurst, an evident derivative from פרע _free_, and רעש _to leap_, _bound_, or _skip_, on account of its agility in leaping or skipping. The flea is a little wingless insect, equally contemptible and troublesome. It is thus described by an Arabian author: “A black, nimble, extenuated, hunch-backed animal, which being sensible when any one looks on it, jumps incessantly, now on one side, now on the other, till it gets out of sight.” David likens himself to this insect; importing that while it would cost Saul much pains to catch him, he would obtain but very little advantage from it.