Another word occurring at the beginning of the first chapter of Genesis that is now and again used in the Bible as a metaphor, is _Ruach_ (‪רוח‬), meaning sometimes “wind,” and sometimes “spirit,” or divine inspiration. It is so commonly used in the latter sense that no comment is necessary here. What is, however, worth mentioning in connexion with it is that Homer also used it in the same sense, whenever he referred to the influence which his deities exercised on the human mind. There are likewise several fine Biblical metaphors modelled on _Ruach_ (“the wind”), when it is employed either in its ordinary sense or as the emblem of punishment and calamity. So Jeremiah (iv. 11): “A dry wind blows from the high places in the wilderness toward the daughters of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse; a powerful wind it is that shall come from those _places_ unto me, and now I will hold judgment upon them.” Isaiah's simile, “As the trees of the wood are moved with the wind” (Isa. vii. 2), has found a pretty parallel in Virgil's _Aeneid_ (iv. 638), which runs thus:— As when the winds their airy quarrel try, Justling from every quarter of the sky; This way and that the mountain oak they bend; His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend; With leaves and fallings most they spread the ground; The hollow valleys echo to the sound; Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks, Or shaken, clings more closely to the rocks. The following is another metaphor of a somewhat similar kind, employed by Homer in the _Iliad_ (xvii. 57), which bears a great resemblance to the lovely one found in the 103rd Psalm, to which reference has been made above. It runs as follows:— As the young olive in some sylvan scene, Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green, Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair, And plays and dances to the gentle air; When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades The tender plant, and withers all its shades; It lies uprooted from its genial bed: A lovely ruin, now defaced and dead. Passing now from inanimate nature to animate things, there are in the Bible a good many metaphors based thereon. Here, again, it is the prophet Isaiah who furnishes us with the largest number of instances. One of them is the bee that symbolizes an invading army, working all kinds of mischief. Thus we read in Isaiah (vii. 18):—“On that day will the Lord hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall all come and rest in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorn-bushes, and upon all the pastures.” A fine parallel occurs in Homer's _Iliad_ (ii. 87), which runs as follows:—