Mouse

"Heb. `akhbar, "swift digger"), properly the dormouse, the" "field-mouse (1 Sam. 6:4). In Lev. 11:29, Isa. 66:17 this word is" "used generically, and includes the jerboa (Mus jaculus), rat," "hamster (Cricetus), which, though declared to be unclean" "animals, were eaten by the Arabs, and are still eaten by the" Bedouins. It is said that no fewer than twenty-three species of this group (`akhbar=Arab. ferah) of animals inhabit Palestine. "God "laid waste" the people of Ashdod by the terrible visitation" "of field-mice, which are like locusts in their destructive" "effects (1 Sam. 6:4, 11, 18). Herodotus, the Greek historian," accounts for the destruction of the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35) by saying that in the night thousands of mice invaded the "camp and gnawed through the bow-strings, quivers, and shields," and thus left the Assyrians helpless. (See [424]SENNACHERIB.)