The Shephelah
The Shephelah is a transliteration of a Hebrew geographical term meaning “lowland”. It comprises a region of low foothills separating the Philistine coastal plain from the highlands of Judah further inland. It covers an area roughly 16kms wide and 40kms long, wit…
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The main function of the muscular system is movement. Muscle is the only tissue in the body that has the ability to contract and, therefore, move other parts of the body. Without muscles, nothing would work in the body.
Muscles control posture and body position as well. They often contrac…
Moles
There are two Hebrew words translated “moles” in Scripture. The first occurs in Leviticus 11:30 where the original word tanshemeth means “hard breather”. Unfortunately the translators have struggled with this word because it is translated “swan” in Leviticus 11:18 and Deut…
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In biology, the most amazing designs are often found in small things. Take for example froghoppers. These “insects can perform explosive jumps with some of the highest accelerations known among animals”, say three scientists in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Thes…
The Sparrow
The Hebrew word is tsippor, which is rendered “fowl” seven times, “bird” 64 times and “sparrow” twice (Psa 84:3; 102:7). It is used of any small “clean” bird, but in the LXX the Greek word strouthion refers specifically to the sparrow.
The sparrow be…
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The Inner Ear
In the previous article we saw how the structure of the cochlea enabled it to separate sound into its component frequencies: waves travel along the basilar membrane until they reach their characteristic place: high frequencies resonating near the base, and low frequencies reachi…
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Michmash
Cutting through the land of Israel some 10kms north east of Jerusalem is a natural fault line running east-west where a deep gorge called the Wady es Suweinit (Nahal Michmash) descends from Geba to the Jordan valley.
This canyon-like gorge is styled in the Scriptures, ‘t…
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The Inner Ear
In the previous article we saw how sound (the vibration of air on the eardrum) was converted by the middle ear to vibration of the stapes’ footplate on the oval window of the cochlea. Now we move onto considering the cochlea itself. The cochlea is where these vibrations are co…
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The Fox
There are a number of different types of foxes found in Israel today, but the fox mentioned in the Scripture is most likely the sand fox (Hebrew: shu’al hanegev Latin: Vulpes rueppellii). This fox was once found in many dry wadis in the Judean wilderness but during the 1…
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The second of the three stages of our hearing apparatus is the middle ear.
The middle ear transfers the vibration of sound from the ear-drum to the cochlea where it can be converted into nerve signals. This transfer of vibration from one place to another might appear to be a very simple t…
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