Free Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves

compared God’s matchless strength to that of a reem (
Numbers
XXIII. 22; XXIV. 8); and Moses used the same metaphor in his blessing of Joseph (
Deuteronomy
XXXIII. 17). According to Doughty’s
Arabia Deserta
, the
reem
of Northern Arabia, though called a ‘wild-ox’, is a large, very fleet antelope (
beatrix
), whose venison is esteemed above all other by the Bedouin. Because its long, sharp, straight horns can transfix a man, Arab hunters keep at a respectful distance until their shots have wounded it mortally. Leather from a buck’s tough hide makes the best sandals; its horns serve as tent-pegs or picks.
    Since the Palestinian reem had become extinct by late Biblical times, and single horns from Arabia were imported to Alexandria as rarities, the third century B.C. Septuagint translators rendered ‘reem’ as
monokerŏs
, or ‘unicorn’; thus confusing it with the one-horned rhinoceros. Balaam’s comparison of God’s strength to that of a reem explains later exaggerated accounts of its size. The Noah’s Ark story answers a disciple’s question: ‘Why did the reem, if it were so huge, not drown in the Deluge?’
    2
. The original meaning of
ziz
(in the phrase
ziz sadai
, or ‘ziz of the field’—
Psalms
I. 11 and LXXX. 14) seems to have been ‘insects’, or possibly ‘locusts’, from the Akkadian word
zizanu
, or
sisanu.
But when the Septuagint appeared, this had been forgotten, and it was translated in the First Psalm as ‘fruit of the field’, though in the Eightieth Psalm as ‘wild ass’. St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (completed A.D. 405) altered the Septuagint’s ‘fruit of the field’ to ‘beauty of the field’; and ‘wild ass’ to ‘peculiar beast’. The Aramaic Targum and the Talmud, on the other hand, explain
ziz
as
tarnegol bar
(‘wild cock’), or
ben netz
(‘son of the hawk’), or
sekhwi
(‘cock’), or
renanim
(‘jubilations’) or
bar yokhni
(‘son of the nest’); thus connecting it with elaborate Iranian myths about the sacred cock of Avesta, and with the
roc
or
rukh
also called
saēna
or
simurgh
, of the
Arabian Nights
and Persian folklore, which could carry off elephants and rhinoceroses as food for its young. Rashi of Troyes, the eleventh-century scholar, comes closer to the original sense with ‘a creeping thing, named
ziz
, because it moves on,
zaz
, from one place to another.’

8
THE FALL OF LUCIFER
    (
a
) On the Third Day of Creation God’s chief archangel, a cherub by name Lucifer, son of the Dawn (‘Helel ben Shahar’), walked in Eden amid blazing jewels, his body a-fire with carnelian, topaz, emerald, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire and carbuncle, all set in purest gold. For awhile Lucifer, whom God had made Guardian of All Nations, behaved discreetly; but soon pride turned his wits. ‘I will ascend above the clouds and stars,’ he said, ‘and enthrone myself on Saphon, the Mount of Assembly, thus becoming God’s equal.’ God, observing Lucifer’s ambitions, cast him down from Eden to Earth, and from Earth to Sheol. Lucifer shone like lightning as he fell, but was reduced to ashes; and now his spirit flutters blindly without cease through profound gloom in the Bottomless Pit. 80
    ***
    1
. In
Isaiah
XIV. 12–15, the King of Babylon’s pre-ordained fall is compared to that of Helel ben Shahar:
    How art thou fallen from heaven,
    O Lucifer son of the Dawn!
    How art thou cast down to the ground,
    Despoiler of nations!
    And thou saidst in thy heart:
    ‘I will ascend to heaven,
    Above the stars of El
    Will I lift my throne;
    I will sit on the Mount of Meeting,
    In the utmost North.
    ‘I will ascend above the hills of cloud;
    I will be like unto the Most High!’
    Yet thou art brought down to Sheol,
    To the bottomless abyss.
    This short reference suggests that the myth was familiar enough not to need telling in full: for Isaiah omits all details of the archangel’s punishment by God (here named
Elyon
, ‘the Most High’), who resented rivals in