on the threshold, one had to leap over it with the right foot first. The custom was due to the belief that evil spirits crouched down on the threshold, and the leaping over it prevented coming into contact with them, and the consequent risk of harm. The action implied the recognition of an alien cult, hence its prohibition[37]. In Cant. ii. 8 the root _qāphatz_ is used as a parallel to _dālag_, and also means “to jump,” or the like; but this is the only passage in which the word is used in this sense. We come now to two roots of which rather more must be said. The first is _ḥāgag_. In 1 Sam. xxx. there is the account of David’s attack on an Amalekite troop who had carried off all the women from Ziklag, among them his two wives; the Egyptian slave of an Amalekite, who had been abandoned by his master because he had fallen sick, is asked by David to lead him to the spot where the Amalekites were encamped; this he undertakes to do on condition that no harm comes to him; then we read in verse 16: “And when he had brought him down, behold, they were sprawling about all over the ground, eating and drinking and feasting” (_hōgĕgim_); that is how the Revised Version renders this last word. To render it thus, however, is pleonastic, for if they were eating and drinking they were quite obviously “feasting”; the word, therefore, cannot well have this meaning here. The more natural rendering would be “dancing”; and, indeed, this would be the meaning that we should expect, for, as will be shown below, “dancing” is almost synonymous with “feasting,” because it was characteristic of feasts. Driver, in discussing this passage, says in reference to the word: Whether, however, the sense of _dancing_ is really expressed by the word is very doubtful. Modern lexicographers only defend it by means of the questionable assumption that _ḥāgag_ may have had a similar signification to _ḥūg_, which, however, by no means itself expresses the sense of _to dance_, but _to make a circle_ (Job xxvi. 10).... It is best to acquiesce in the cautious judgement of Nöldeke[38], who declares that he cannot with certainty get behind the idea of a _festal gathering_ for the common Semitic _ḥag_. Here then the meaning will be “behaving as at a _ḥag_ or gathering of pilgrims,” i.e. enjoying themselves merrily[39].