expression to the locusts In a literal sense, we may combine the fact that the North is constantly mentioned as the native land of the most dangerous enemies of Israel, viz., the Assyrians and Chaldeans. And although this designation be. In a geographical point of view. Inaccurate, this is outweighed by the circumstance, that enemies always Invaded Palestine from Syria, after having previously made that land a part of their dominions. Compare Zeph. ii. 13: "And the Lord stretches out His hand over the _North_, and destroys Assyria, and makes Nineveh a desolation--a dry wilderness;" Jer. i. 14: "And the Lord said unto me, Out of the _North_ the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land;" Jer. iii. 18, where [Pg 319] the land of the North is mentioned as the land of the captivity of Judah and Israel; Jer. iv. 6, vi. 1, 22, x. 22, xlvi. 24, where the people of the North form the antithesis to Egypt, the African power; and Zech. ii. 10. _Jerome_ long ago remarked: "The prophet mentions the North, that we might not think of real locusts, which are wont to come from the South, but might, by the locusts, understand the Assyrians and Chaldeans." 2. That we have here to do with a poetical description, and not with one of natural history, appears from a designation of the places to which the locusts are to be driven. Among these, the dry and hot southern country--the Arabian desert--is first mentioned; then, the anterior sea, _i.e._, the Dead Sea, situated eastward of Jerusalem; and lastly, the hinder, or Mediterranean Sea. That, according to the view of the prophet, the dispersion in these different directions was to take place in a moment, appears from the circumstance that, according to his description, the van of the same army is driven into one sea, and the rear, into the other sea. Now, every one very easily sees that this is a physical impossibility, inasmuch as opposite winds cannot blow at the same time. _Credner's_ explanation, according to which the פנים of the locusts is intended to be the swarm of those who first invaded Palestine, while סופו is their brood, deserves mention in so far only as it affords a proof of the greatness of the absurdities into which one may be deluded, after he has once adopted a groundless hypothesis.