The absence of any mention of Angling in Israel, and in Assyria causes wonder and surprise, especially when we remember that the relations of both nations in trade and intercourse with Egypt, where Rod fishing did obtain, appear when at peace constant and close.[998]

In the Assyrian chapter the vexed question of the earliest date assignable for the invasion or cultural permeation of Egypt by Sumerian or Semitic influences has been considered, and the conflicting views stated.

A fair consensus of agreement holds that the Hyksos sprang from Semitic stock; but the dates suggested for their conquest of Egypt vary from 2540 down to 1845 b.c.[999]

However this may be, the definite association with Egypt of that branch of the Semitic tribes destined in Jacob’s lifetime (Gen. xlvii. 27) to be known as Israelites,[1000] begins with the advent of Abram into that country.

King, Rogers, and Jastrow in their later works have seemingly adopted the date arrived at by Kugler from stellar researches for the first Babylonian Dynasty. If Abram were, as is now thought, the contemporary of Hammurabi, his flitting must have occurred between 2120 and 2080 b.c., but since Egyptian chronology beyond the fifteenth century is fluid, and no early positive synchronisms with Babylon survive, we cannot definitely designate any particular king in Egypt as the contemporary of either Hammurabi or Abram.

The Bible is our main authority for the continuance of the association. The stories of Jacob, of Joseph (in whose title Abrek[1001] some detect a Babylonian influence and a connection with that of Abara-rakku, the designation of one of the five great officers of state), and of Moses, are but episodes of an intercourse which, if we begin with Abram and end with Onias, lasted (with intervals of war and invasion) for some 2000 years.

Evidence of intercourse crops up again and again throughout the four centuries of the Jewish Monarchy. Thus we read (1 Kings iii. 1) of the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh. From Solomon’s reign onward till the birth of Christ and long afterwards, the connection between Egypt and Israel, friendly or hostile, never fails. The flight of Jeroboam to Shishak (1 Kings xi. 40) and the giving of presents, probably tribute, by Hosea to the King of Egypt (2 Kings xvii. 4) present but two instances.

Papyri recently discovered prove the settlement near Assouan of a considerable Jewish, or rather, more correctly, Palestinian colony from (say) 500-400 b.c. This, like the similar but older community at Tahpanhes, exhibits a mart of wide and keen trading. The papyri “show that the Aramaic—the common language of Syria—was regularly used at Syene (Assouan), and we readily see how five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan and swear to Yahweh of Hosts (Isaiah xix. 18) as the oath in these papyri is by Yahu.”[1002]

After the destruction of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes, the petition by Onias to Ptolemy Philometor for permission to erect a central temple for the benefit of the many thousands of his compatriots resident in Egypt concludes the historical evidence that I call as to the continuance of the Egyptian-Israelitish connection. Its survival for centuries after the birth of our Lord is a matter of common knowledge.

The existence of this connection rests not merely on historical evidence. Recent excavations in Southern Palestine tell the same tale, or even carry it still farther back, to pre-Israelite Canaan. Thus, after referring to the tale of Sinuhé (c. 1970 b.c.), Professor G. Barton writes, “There was apparently considerable trade with Egypt at this time. Men from Palestine often went there for this purpose. Such traders are pictured in an Egyptian tomb of this period. Trade with Egypt is also shown to have existed by the discovery of Egyptian scarabs of the time of the Middle Kingdom in the excavations at Gaza, Jericho, and Megiddo. As Egypt was nearer, and commerce with it easier, its art affects the arts of Palestine more than the art of Babylon.”[1003]

R. A. Macalister[1004] writes: “Meanwhile the oldest foreign civilisation of whose influence definite relics have come to light within the land of Palestine is that of Egypt under the XIIth Dynasty.” The assertion that “almost every spadeful of earth which is turned over in Southern Palestine brings to light more evidence of Egyptian influence” seems hardly an exaggeration.[1005]

But, it may be asked, what has all this got to do with fishing? Of itself and in itself apparently nothing.

The introduction, however, of the historical facts cannot be branded as irrelevant. They demonstrate a constant association for over two millenniums with Egypt, and the deep influence of Egyptian civilisation and methods of life on Jewish policy.

And yet, notwithstanding such intercourse and such cultural influence, we can nowhere in the literature of the Bible or of the Rabbis discern either a direct mention, or (as I hope to show) an implied allusion to the use of the Rod, which as a weapon both for market and sport from c. 2000 b.c. found favour in Egypt.[1006]

The same holds true of the Land of the Two Rivers; in no Assyrian sculpture, on no Assyrian seal, can we detect any delineation or any suggestion of angling, although instances of other kinds of fishing occur frequently.[1007]

In no book of the Old or of the New Testament can be found any direct mention of the Rod. In the Talmud—a vast work of teaching and discussion—the same silence prevails. The authoritative Talmudische Archäologie (by S. Krauss, 1910) gives us fishful places such as Lake Tiberias, and many points of ichthyic or piscatorial interest such as the hook, the line, salted fish, garum, etc., but contains no reference to the Rod.[1008] Mr. Breslar, it is true, has recently girded up his loins to establish that in the Bible and the Talmud can be found at any rate the implied use of the Rod, but to a practical angler quite unconvincingly.[1009]

To account for this absence of direct mention of the Rod in the Bible various reasons have been adduced.

The first: in the only two passages, Isaiah xix. 8, and Habakkuk i. 15, where the word “angle” occurs, and in Matthew xvii. 27, “cast a hook,” and in Amos iv. 2, as contended by Mr. Breslar, its use is certainly implied. The validity of this claim remains a question (A) for Hebrew scholars, and (B) for practical fishermen.

From the point of view of the latter, the “casting,” “taking,” etc., in the above passages can be and probably were accomplished by a hand-line (with or without a weight attached to insure greater length of throw) almost as easily and as effectually as if a Rod were employed. As a matter of fact, for taking good-sized fish some of our professional sea-fishermen prefer the hand-line to that of the Rod.

The words in Matthew xvii. 27, “go thou to the sea and cast a hook” do not either in the Greek or English strongly suggest, much less necessarily imply, a Rod. To a professional fisherman of the Sea of Tiberias like Peter, the more natural, probably the only known method of casting would be by a hand-line.

Turning now to the Hebrew passages, Isaiah xix. 8, “The fishers shall also lament, and all they that cast angle in the Nile (A.V., brooks) shall mourn;” Habakkuk i. 15, “He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag;” Job xli. 1, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a fish-hook?” in all these we find the same Hebrew word ḥakkāh.

The R.V. in the first two renders it “angle,” and in Job “fish-hook;” in the Greek version ἄγκιστρον, which in the Septuagint is the usual and in the New Testament (Matt. xvii. 27) the only word for hook, occurs in all three passages.

Whence or from which word can the Rod be implied, or even in fairness claimed? In Isaiah, it is answered, from the words “cast in the Nile.” But in a river, as every child knows, fishing is pursued by more methods than that of the Rod. Judging from the literature of our six Nations fishing by hand-line was far and away more general than by Rod; the ratio between the two would indeed, I think, work out at some 100 to 1.

If then the words, “cast in the Nile,” do not furnish the implication claimed, can we find any other words in the three passages which do? The one word common to them all is ḥakkāh, hook: if this fail the claimants, how or whence can they establish the implication?

Let us now see whither the implication from ḥakkāh leads us. Obviously in Job, to angling with a Rod for “Leviathan” or crocodile![1010] The absurdity is already manifest. Let us, however, in our hunt for the snark-like implication examine the remaining tackle of this intrepid angler. Fortunately for us, conjecture as to the hook or the bait is unnecessary.

The Petrie collection at the University of London preserves a hook, which in Ptolemaic times was employed in the Nile for the capture—not of crocodiles—but merely of large fish, such as Lates niloticus. It measures over one foot in length, with a shank over 2½ inches in width.

The account of crocodile fishing by the Egyptians left us by Herodotus[1011] prescribes the bait—no less an one than a chine of pork. The line, then and now (ex necessitate rei), must have been of stout cord, possibly tied to a tree, with probably some protective material of horn, etc., to prevent erosion.

Conjure up the picture of this Egyptian piscator—even in this instance the Jew does not use the Rod, for there are no Leviathans in Palestine![1012] Behold him “casting,” with a Rod of ancient normal length, about six feet, with a rope line of ancient normal length, from six to ten feet, a bait of even half the back of a porker! Surely a picture for gods and men, more especially the winners of our Casting Competitions, to revere with awe and envy, as a feat of strength and skill unessayable.

From these three passages I can find no reason, contextual or piscatorial, to support the contention that the Rod was used, although to us moderns such use would seem but the natural thing.

Mr. Breslar maintains that Amos iv. 2 authorises the implication. He errs either in translation or through misconception of the tackle described. The words run, “They shall take you away with hooks (ẓinnōth), and your residue with fish-hooks.” The Hebrew word for the second, ṣīrōth dūgāh, means only hooks, plain and simple, while that for the first, ẓinnōth, signifies also thorns and probably fish-spears, or harpoons.

Amos, however, far from thinking of or suggesting a Rod, is looking contrariwise at the end of a line. His metaphor is drawn from the non-angling custom prevalent and pictured in Assyrian representations of a conqueror having his captives dragged by cords fastened by presumable, but naturally not apparent, hooks firm fixed in their lips. This conception is strengthened by the fact that ḥakkāh in its primary etymological sense implies merely something connected with the jaws.[1013]

If Mr. Breslar surmises (though his words convey no such hint) that for his “rudimentary type of Rod in the Scriptures” Israel affixed a line to his fishing spear, thus squaring with my conjecture in the Introduction as to the evolution of the modern Rod, may I respectfully ask why did a race, so pre-eminently alert and proverbially acquisitive, handicap itself by the selection of such a “rudimentary type” in preference to a weapon long invented, ready to hand, and far superior?

A friend, in the hope of helping me to some authoritative information as regards Angling, suggested Jagd, Fischfang, und Bienenzucht bei den Juden in der tannäischen Zeit, by Herr Moritz Mainzer, as the very last word on Jewish fishing. Unable (owing to the War) to obtain this in book form, I tracked it eventually to some articles under the same title in the magazine, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums (1909). Except for a pearl or two such as “Fishermen, then as now in Palestine, worked lightly dressed or naked,”—was this suggested by St. John, or P. Fletcher’s, “Now when Simon heard, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, for he was naked”?—Fischfang (at any rate) far from rewards one’s search.

Mainzer’s two sentences (p. 463) assist not at all in determining whether or not the Jews used the Rod. “Die eigentliche ḥakkāh war ein eiserner an eine Leine (ḥebhel) befestigter Haken. Die Leine selbst konnte mit einer Rute oder einem Stabe verbunden sein der zuweilen mehrere Schnüre mit Angeln trug” (the ḥakkāh proper was an iron hook fastened to a fishing ḥebhel. This line might be attached to a rod or stick, which sometimes had on it several cords with fishing hooks).

The supporting references come from no Israelitish source, but from Assyrian representations of hand-lining in Layard’s Nineveh, and from Egyptian delineations of Rod fishing in Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians. Not a single word does Mainzer quote from any authority on Jewish Angling. The words, “to a Rod which sometimes had on it several cords with fishing hooks,” simply translate Wilkinson’s Plate 371.

Had I weighed the title and duly appreciated the combination of Hunting, Fishing, and Bee-culture! I would have been perhaps prepared for a disappointment, but the output of, or the “cultural associations” in, a German work often defy prediction from its mere headings. Mainzer, in his Fischfang, serves to recall Porson’s lines, which are themselves but an adaptation of a Greek epigram,[1014]

Lest my own conclusion—that neither in the Old or New Testament is the implied use of the Rod established—carry little weight, I subjoin the conclusions (stated in letters to me) arrived at by two well-known Hebrew scholars.

The first comes from Professor A. R. S. Kennedy (the writer of the article on Fishing in the Encyclopædia Biblica): “In short you are entirely justified, so far as evidence goes, in saying that the Jews did not use the Rod.”

The second comes from Dr. St. Clair Tisdall: “We find in the Bible no proof of fishing with Rod and line: on the contrary the fact that no mention whatever, direct or indirect, of the fishing Rod occurs either in the Bible or (as far as my reading goes) in the Talmud, makes it almost certain that the Rod was not used by the Jews. At any rate the use of any such instrument is not implied in either Book.”

A second reason for the absence of the Rod may be that of dates. The Jews, it might be urged, were not and could not be aware of Egyptian Angling, because it sprang up subsequent to their Exodus from the country. The reply I offer involves, it is true, that bewildering factor, Egyptian chronology. But even if a thousand years are as nothing in the sight of Manetho and many others, surely one epoch correlates with another, and the shifting of one date automatically involves the shifting of others.

The date of the Exodus, like most Egyptian dates, hitherto a matter of considerable contention, is now generally agreed as falling between 1300 and 1200 b.c. Petrie[1015] fixes on “1220 b.c. or possibly rather later,” Hanbury Brown places the Flight ten years earlier, i.e. 1230, for reasons based mainly on the stele of King Menephtah.[1016]

So if the contention that the Israelites could not well know of the Rod because of its invention after their flight holds water, any representation of Rod fishing must obviously be subsequent to the year 1230 or 1220 b.c. Only two such representations exist: (A) (in Wilkinson’s Plate 370) comes from the tomb (No. 93) of Kenamūm at Thebes, and dates from about the second half of the XVIIIth Dynasty, or some 200 years before the Exodus, while (B) (in Wilkinson’s Plate 371, and in Newberry’s Beni Hasan, vol. I. Plate XXIX.) goes back to the early XIIth Dynasty or some 750 years before the Exodus.[1017]

The Exodus, whatever date be assigned, probably occurred in the time of and was occasioned by a dynasty non-Semitic, and unfavourable to Israel. The corvée enforced doubtless by the kourbash was exacted from the aliens, whose task (Exodus i. 11) included the building of two brick fortresses to block the eastern road into Egypt.

To most of us unacquainted with the making of bricks the cruelty of the Pharaonic command, “There shall be no straw given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks,” seems to consist in demanding from the sojourners the same quantity of output without their possessing, as the Egyptian workers did possess, an essential constituent in the brick-straw.

But Petrie points out that straw, so far from being an essential of the mixture, is absent from most ancient and modern bricks. The complaint arose because finely chopped straw is very useful for preventing the mud from sticking to the hand, for dusting over the ground, and for coating each lump before dropping it in the mould, thus enabling the work to go on quickly and easily. From the strawless Jew, however, was extorted for the same hours a tale of bricks equal to that of the Egyptian enjoying these advantages.

In direct opposition to Petrie, Maspero states, and Erman[1018] agrees, that the ordinary Egyptian brick, both ancient and modern, is “a mere block of mud, mixed with chopped straw and a little sand.”

Other reasons for the Jewish unfamiliarity with the Rod, viz. its merely local use, and their settlement in the North East of Egypt remote from “the River of Egypt,” would fully be met, were it not for Isaiah, with the simple statement that at present they can neither be proved nor disproved.

But the words of Isaiah xix. 8, “The fishers also shall lament, and all they that cast angle into the Nile shall mourn,” surely demonstrate—if we allow that “cast angle” is the proper technical translation, and that the two words cannot mean the mere throwing of a hook with a hand-line—that the Israelites during the 430 years (Exodus xii. 40) of their sojourn in Egypt did acquire familiarity with the methods of fishing employed by their taskmasters.

Still, even if we take it as proved that for some reason Angling was at the time of the Exodus an unknown art to the Jews, why with all the intercourse of the subsequent centuries was the knowledge of the existence and value of the Rod not acquired?[1019]

Those and other queries may have found a ready reply in the reputed but lost Book of Solomon on Fishes.[1020] It may possibly have contained some clue, such as a command or custom, totemistic or other, common to the old Semitic stock, or some trait of temperament which caused Angling to be regarded as too slow or too unremunerative a pastime.

Without its guidance one is almost driven to the conclusion that the ancient Israelites (like the early Greeks and Romans) were pot-hunters, bent on the spoil rather than on the sport of their catch, but (unlike them) continued this characteristic throughout their history, and remained to the end uninfected by the joy or passion of Angling. Their desire was fish—abundant and cheap, or better still gratis: hence when “fed up” with Manna (Numbers xi. 5) they fell a-lusting—“Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt for nought.”

This apparent lack of the sporting instinct contrasts strangely with the fact that modern Jews rank among our foremost anglers, and that to a Jew we owe the greatest book written within the last generation, if not the practical establishment on a scientific basis of the dry-fly, that most finished form of Angling.

Dr. Kennet, Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, while holding no brief either way, has, at my request, most kindly suggested some reasons which may conceivably account for the Biblical absence of Angling. To my mind none of these affords adequate proof of its existence.

A. The physical characteristics of the country preclude many references to fishing in the Old Testament. However keen their desire, the majority of the population were in the position of Simple Simon, when he “went a-fishing for to catch a whale.” Sea-fishing was out of the question, for with the doubtful exception of a small bit of the Galilæan coast—probably not held continuously—no part of the Mediterranean sea-shore belonged to Israel during the Monarchy, while the climate and intense heat of the Valley of the Jordan, the only real river, kept its inhabitants apart from the dwellers on the mountains.

But contra: even if the majority were Simple Simons, the numerous references (about 74) in the Bible to fishes, fishing, and fishing implements indicate a wide, if perhaps impersonal, knowledge of the practice. The fact that the larger number of these were used as metaphors or similes evidences a more than local knowledge of fishing, because for a metaphor or simile to be telling it usually must, as do the Homeric, appeal to a well-known, common, and long-established custom or craft.

B. Although fishing apparently prevailed always in the Sea of Galilee, it must be remembered that practically the whole literature of the Old Testament emanates from central and southern Palestine, and (as is the case with Egyptian literature as regards Deltaic conditions) contains but scant allusion to life among the Northern Tribes. Hence possibly the silence about the Rod, which may nevertheless have been employed.

C. The Old Testament stories, although some belong to the same period as the Homeric, are told in a manner very different from the latter. Every picture is sketched with the fewest strokes, and accordingly details are, have to be, taken for granted. Thus, although the majority of the people subsisted largely on milk, there is not one reference to milking.

But contra: this omission seems to me hardly on all fours with that of the Rod. The word milk, when not expressly limited, e.g. “of thy bosom,” or used metaphorically, signifies solely the lacteal liquid extruded from the teats of an animal, and so implies milking or a previous act of extrusion, whereas the word fishing connotes no single method of taking fish, as the Old Testament in its mention of the implements, Spear, Hook and Line, and Nets, demonstrates. Then again Job xxi. 24 (R.V. margin), “his milk-pails are full of milk,” and Judges iv. 19, “she opened a bottle of milk,” both demand an extrusion effected by one and only one method, whereas “jars of fish” may have been filled by any piscatorial method.

D. There is no evidence that the Israelites brought from Egypt a single particle of Egyptian civilisation. Nomads they were when they entered, and nomads they were when they left Egypt. Their kultur was taken over from the Canaanites, and their later civilisation, despite periods of subjection to Egypt, owed far less to that country than to Babylonia.

Even if we grant that no actual evidence of Egyptian culture exists, the probabilities incline the other way. Their abiding place was in no sterile or out-of-the-way corner of that country, but in Goshen, where we read “they gat them possessions therein,” and was in close proximity to the great high road, which bore the commerce between Egypt and Asia, and vice versâ. They were certainly familiar with the manufacture of bricks, and presumably the building of houses, etc.

E. The verse, “The fishers shall also lament and they that cast angle in the brooks shall mourn,” which may betray knowledge of the Rod, is apparently much later than Isaiah, and may, perhaps, be assigned to the second century b.c., and refer to the campaign of Antiochus Epiphanes in Egypt.

Even if we allow that this date accounts for all omission of Angling during the millennium between the Exodus and this campaign, why is there no actual or implied reference in subsequent literature, especially in the voluminous Talmud?

But the Jewish lack of sport is evidenced not only in their methods of fishing, but, what is more remarkable, in those of their hunting, or rather non-hunting. While Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian Monarchs were famous for their hunting exploits, no single Jewish king, except Herod, is handed down to us delighting in or even taking part in the chase.[1021]

We find no Hebrew counterpart to Tiglath-Pileser, with his historical bag of “4 wild bulls mighty and terrible, 10 elephants and 120 lions ” on foot, and 130 speared from his chariot, or even of a mild understudy to Ashur-bani-pal.[1022] The Bible gives but two—Esau’s brother scarcely ranks as one—hunter-characters: Esau “a cunning hunter,” and Nimrod “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Even the latter of these two heroes was no Israelite, but a king “of Accad,” a Sumero-Assyrian, whom some writers identify with Gilgamesh.

Such indifference to or aversion from the chase cannot either at the time of the invasion of Palestine (Exodus xxiii. 29), or subsequently be ascribed to the lack of wild beasts or of game, for we read of lions, bears, jackals, foxes, etc., and of hart, fallow deer, and antelope.

Two reasons—neither, to my mind, satisfactory—have been advanced to explain this attitude as regards hunting, a pursuit which admittedly has played, both as a necessity and a pastime, an important part in the education and evolution of mankind.

The first: the Hebrews, as described in the Old Testament, had already reached the stage of pastoral nomads, when “hunting, which is the subsistence of the ruder wanderer, has come to be only an extra means of life.”[1023]

The second: the Hebrews, hampered perhaps by certain peculiarities of their religion, or on account of the density of the population were not often induced “to revert for amusement to what their ancestors had been compelled to practise from necessity.”[1024]

Either, or both, of these reasons might have carried weight, had it not been for the existence hard by in Assyria of a people, among whom, although sprung from the Semitic stock, hunting was a recognised and popular pastime, and this despite a population far denser.

Nor, again, when we compare the culture of the two nations, can Lacépède’s previously quoted dictum that in civilisation the fisher nation is usually more advanced than the hunter nation help the Hebrews, for apart from the fact of the indisputable and immeasurable superiority of the Assyrian civilisation we discover no sign of angling in Israel.

As in their fishing, they were “out for” the meat, not for the sport, so was it, I fear, in their hunting. If they found no pleasure in the chase, they assuredly delighted in the eating of game and were dexterous trappers of animals. Their methods were:—